


Oneshot collection

by HyperKey



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-04-27 18:20:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 24,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5059102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperKey/pseuds/HyperKey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of the oneshots I usually post on tumblr, all together in one place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The darkest Secret

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I make a lot of typos and mistakes, Yes I am aware of them haha. I correct them when i notice them, sometimes they just get overlooked. I'm sorry. I'm really not doing this on purpose.

"It was my fault." Rose said out of nowhere. They had sat down on the carpet in the living room to sort through photographs for a school project for John. It was past ten in the evening, the boy soundly asleep already. A small box was sitting in front of Rose, contents spread all over the carpet. They didn't have many pictures, even less of their family together, but Rose hoped to find some. She had found baby pictures of John, how small he had been and how big his eyes looked.

Jack had taken one of those and was staring at it in wonder. Had she never shown them to him?

John desperately wanted to use family pictures for the photography project he had been assigned to and so Rose dug the small purple box out. It was decorated with birds and butterflies. She had never bothered to put them in an album, never found it necessary. John loved looking at those photographs. He had sneaked one out of that box a few months ago. Rose had found it under his pillow.

Now the picture of his father had a frame and stood on the boy's nightstand.

"Hm?" Jack asked without looking away from the picture. He gazed at it so lovingly that Rose scrapped the whole plan in her head.

She couldn't tell him.

"Never mind."

He tore his gaze away from the picture, blue eyes focusing on her as his brows furrowed in slight confusion. She wasn't one to avoid questions or didn't finish what she started. She knew he would get suspicious if she didn't say anything.

Desperately fighting to find an answer he would believe, she stared out the window behind him. It was dark outside and the living room light was bright and uncomfortable. It caught in his eyes and they seemed so sad for a second.

"...I mean the plates that crashed down yesterday." She lied. "I... put them too close to the edge."

She hadn't. She still didn't know how her husband had gotten caught in the small stack of three plates and crashed them to the tiled floor in the process. He had cursed loudly when he cleaned up the shards.

"...I just didn't look." He sighed. "I'll buy new ones."

"We still have enough." Rose muttered, absentmindedly shoving a few photos aside. She froze when she found one of her husband.

He had longer hair on that picture, it had been caught in a breeze. A grin on his face she hadn't seen on him in forever. He was dressed in a blue shirt, hands stemmed into his sides and looked at the camera as if he was trying to tease whoever had made the picture. Rose didn't remember who had made it. There were a lot of people behind him, the ocean behind them. The picture had been taken in New York, she realized and flipped it over to look at the date. It had been made before the Big Shell happened. When he still believed that she was who he thought she was. Just a girl who coincidentally worked at the same place.

It wasn't all great back then, but there were short moments like these that had made it fun. Rose remembered how guilty she had begun to feel when her orchestrated feelings turned into genuine love. How terrible she felt when she told these people about him, and she still finished her job. She didn't doubt that it had been her fault that things happened the way they did. She had never doubted it. She had also never told him about it. Maybe she had nothing to do with it in the end. Still, why had they ordered her to spy on him if not for a greater purpose? The only task had been to supply them with information about him. Everything she found out, habits, knacks, things he did and said.  She would never find out why exactly they had ordered her to do it, and yet she had this theory lodged in her mind and she couldn't get rid of it.

"Rose?"

She looked at him with a lump in her throat. It all made sense after all. Why would all of this had happened to him if not for her? She bit on her trembling lower lip, fought against the tears as she took a deep breath and turned her head away from him. She still had the picture in her hand, and glancing at it again made the tears spill with all the bottled up feelings she had kept down ever since she had first thought about this theory.

Desperately she wiped the tears away. "I'm sorry..." she whispered when he took the picture out of her hands and glanced at it for a short moment before he tossed it into the box and shut it as if it had sharp teeth that wanted to bite him. His hand rested on the lid for a few more seconds before he took it away and stared at Rose.

"Why... do you have that..."

"I don't know." Rose whispered, sniffed some tears away. "I didn't know it was in there."

He ran a hand through his hair, picked up one of the pictures he had taken out earlier and gave it to Rose.

"He can use this one for the project."

Rose looked up at him. "But you're not on it."

"There aren't any pictures of us three when I was still..." He trailed off.

"Jack... this is important to him. He wants you on the picture."

He shook his head, grabbed another picture. "I took this one, isn't that good enough?"

It showed John and Rose on the carpet in the living room, trying to throw candy into each other's mouths. It was blurry and a little too bright. The result of him not having any idea how to operate the camera Rose had given him.

"Why do you have such a big problem with you being on a picture?" Rose asked silently, she wasn't accusing him, but she was getting irritated.

He growled in frustration. "Just look at me. It's going to look even worse on a photo!"

"Jack-"

"No." he hissed.

"But John-"

"No." He repeated more firm.

Rose  grabbed the box and threw it at him. "Fine! Do what you want! Let them tease him more about his father not being real!"

The man had shielded his face from the box with his arms, watched it fall to the ground and the picture in there fall out. Rose had stood and stormed out of the living room and he was left to wonder why she had gotten so angry in the first place. He couldn't help but wonder if there was something else. He knew Rose, she needed quite a while to get upset to the point of throwing things at him. It happened often, but he needed to push buttons to get her to it. This one happened randomly. He often disagreed with her, they argued, but she usually didn't throw things.

Sighing he gathered the pictures, put them into the box and set them on the coffee table, he then went about to pick up the DVD cases John had left on the ground and walked into the kitchen after he was done.

Rose was standing over the sink, head down, suppressing sobs. She had her fists clenched, knuckles white, frame trembling. Rose usually didn't cry after a fight, but she had cried before. What was the whole reason for that? Broken plates were nothing to cry over, she had never cried over that before. Maybe that one time when she was pregnant... but he didn't remember much of that. Maybe it was better that way.

"Rose..." he muttered silently, unsure of how to approach her. Was she angry or just sad? Both? He couldn't tell.

Rose turned around to him, eyes red and puffy when she placed her forehead on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. Her nails dug into the artificial skin under the shirt. When she sobbed loudly, a sound that even surprised her.

"It's my fault..." she repeated.

"Rose what are you talking about?" uncertain he wrapped his arms around her, tried to comfort her.

"They must've used my information to determine whether you were suited for it or not..." she spoke breathlessly, fast as if she didn't really want to say it.

He had no idea what she was getting at. "Huh?"

"The patriots, Jack..." she cried. "They must have had a reason for me spying on you..."

He flinched violently. That wasn't a good topic to bring up at half past ten in the night. It was never a good topic anyway.

"...You think..."

"Yes... why else?" She let out a shaking breath. "Why you?"

"Rose... you don't know that..." He had begun to tremble. This wasn't something he wanted to discuss. He didn't want to remember.

"But it is possible..."

He shook his head, held her tighter in the warming embrace even though he felt incredibly cold. This wasn't a real coldness. It was his mind playing tricks on him. He wasn't cold, not physically.

"It was revenge." Jack muttered. "For Sunny... that's what I think."

"They spent millions on a random person because of revenge?" Rose asked in disbelief. Her theory made more and more sense now.

He closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't know Rose... I don't want to think about it... we'll never get an answer, why argue about it anyway..."

"You're avoiding the subject."

He was silent for a moment. "You wouldn't want to hear any of this. I don't want to talk about it anyway."

Rose loosened the embrace just enough to look into his face. "Jack... what did they do to you?"

He avoided her gaze. "They stole my body. That's all."

"...Y-You... remember... it?" The woman asked silently, slowly as if the words didn't make sense to her.

A tremor run through her husband's body. "...Some of it..." he whispered. "I don't want to think about it. Not now..."

Rose let him off the hook then.

He had nightmares that night.

 

 


	2. Family

He stared at the screen of the ancient laptop he was staring at for hours now. There hasn't been much he could have ever done for his wife, except maybe being able to make some money. And for a long time that had been mostly on her as well. He did what he could, and it never felt enough. He took care of the household when he was home, cleaned up, picked John up from school, even brought him on occasion. Not that he liked it much, but John's surprised face when he told him he would bring him too school was always worth it. Maybe he was getting used to the stares.  Most people at John's school had seen him by now and barely still anyone dared to ask questions. John had not been bullied for it, and he didn't lose any friends. If anything he had more now.

Jack wasn't sure what to think about that.

Sighing he stretched, some movement he just did out of an ancient habit. It did little to ease the tension that seemed to sit in his mind. By now it was half past three in the morning, he wouldn't get any sleep tonight.

Not that he minded, he had gone longer without sleep. And that was when he was still completely human. A joke if a cyborg couldn't do that.

But this email was difficult. A letter to people he had never met, barely knew their names of, never seen their faces. He hadn't even known where they lived until a while ago let alone an email address. Sunny really was a genius in finding people like this. They had been outfitted with new names, new identities, moved to a different state and yet Sunny had managed to track them down. Their old names, their new address. Birthdates, records of children. Friends.

Jack felt a little like a stalker.

He ran a hand through his hair, another ancient habit, and focused on the screen once more.

_'Hello Mr. and Mrs. '_

And he hadn't gotten any further. What was he supposed to write?

_'I married your daughter, we have a son. Oh, and I'm a cyborg.'_

 He shook his head. He couldn't drop the bomb like that. They would think he was a jerk, maybe  even think it was spam. Rose had no idea he was doing this and maybe she wouldn't even want him to. Still, a few weeks ago John had asked about his grandparents. Jack had never been interested in Rose's parents, he probably didn't even consider the fact that there was more of a family than just them. A grandmother and a grandfather. Jack had been in the kitchen when he overheard Rose explain to John why they couldn't meet his grandparents. That they had moved away and that she lost all contact to them.

Jack had only once before been so painfully aware that Rose had thrown away a whole life to live another. It wasn't a memory he really wanted to dwell on.

He gave Sunny a call not much later, asked her if she could find out anything. Last week the girl had sent him an E-Mail with all the possible info he could need. She hadn't asked about anything.

Why was it so hard to write this damn email?

Rose had looked so sad after that talk with John. Jack couldn't imagine how she felt. Of course he missed his family when he was working, but he knew they were there, and when he had time between missions he could always call them, see their faces, help John with homework.

Rose hadn't seen her parents in over a decade. How did it feel to long for a mother and a father? Jack shrugged at his thoughts. Solidus certain was a father figure back when he didn't know any better, but now that he did he had no idea if it wasn't more of an attachment because he was forced into it, not because he wanted to.

Stockholm syndrome Rose called it.

Still, his wife had a family, even a sister and a brother, both with children of their own. Rose probably didn't know she was an aunt. John didn't know he had cousins. Jack had only seen it all in that email. The children had been born before John, but after he had met Rose.

He wanted to write this email. Wanted to give his wife something back. Would they recognize her? Would they be okay with her change in appearance? Sunny had added in a side note that she didn't add a picture of how Rose looked before Jack met her, because she didn't want to rile him up.

 _Thoughtful of her._   He thought with slight sarcasm.  Sunny knew the whole story. Sunny was probably the only one after Rose who knew everything.

What if her parents hated her now? What if they didn't like John? What if they had a problem with a cyborg.

"You're thinking too much..." he growled at himself.

The tiny clock on the laptop screen now showed 4:45 am. Rose would get up in a little more than two hours. He needed to be done by then.

With a sigh he rested his head in his palms, ran his hand through his hair once more and continued to Type.

_'My name is Jack, I am writing this E-mail-'_

Why was he writing it? To make Rose feel better? Or to make himself feel better? He didn't know. But surely her parents were missing their daughter too, weren't they? They had two other children, they probably missed their sister too, didn't they?

Maybe he should just be honest. Not sugarcoat it. But what was the truth?

_'Your daughter spied on me, we had a kid, but she lied to me and I ran away, rescued a girl and got turned into a cyborg by the patriots.'_

He scoffed. God it sounded so absurd like this. Why would they need to know that anyway? He scrapped that line and stared at the E-mail again.

4:50 Am

"Forget the time. Just shut the damn thing when she comes downstairs, she'll never know." He muttered to himself.

Maybe he just wanted to tell the whole story to someone who wasn't involved directly. But they'd pity him. And as far as he could tell, his life could be worse by far. He didn't want pity. It was okay like this. It wasn't great, but it could have been worse.

"Forget the cyborg thing and shock them?... bad idea." He growled in frustration.

_'I am Writing this E-mail because my wife is missing you dearly.'_

Maybe this was better. Beat around the bush a little, don't drop the bomb immediately.

 _'Rosemary'_ Wait. Was that even her real name?

"Stupid, of course it is!" he scolded himself.

_'Rosemary told me that she had to leave her old life behind.'_

He nodded. _Yeah do it like that. A white lie doesn't hurt._

What else was he supposed to write? Tell them about John? How they ended up in New Zealand? Maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

_'She had to alter her appearance. She said she doesn't know if you would even recognize her or if you would still love her.'_

"Cheesy shit. Why am a writing this..." he growled but decided to leave the line there. It was something.

'There is something I need you to know.'

He sighed. Should he really say that in the first email? But when should he do it?

_'We have a son, his name is John. He was sad to learn that there were no grandparents. I am the only one left of my family, that only leaves you'_

Jack was surprised. Suddenly it was easier to write this. Was it a good thing to tell them that his real family was dead? That the family he  got adopted into was full of psychopaths?

"That's a little mean..." He muttered to himself. "They're not all bad... Just misunderstood."

_'I did not tell Rose that I am writing this E-Mail. Guess I wanted to surprise her.'_

Was he putting his family at risk with this e-mail? _But the patriots are gone._

He entered their telephone number and their address and felt terrible about it. He was revealing his family to total strangers. What if this went wrong?

"But they're gone." He sighed. _She keeps telling me to do things I usually wouldn't._.. _boosting self-esteem or something_.

He couldn't bring himself to read the e-mail once more before he sent it. He knew he wouldn't do it if he read it once more. But he was anxious. Scared even, he had totally skipped over the cyborg part. What would they think?

The mail was on its way, there was no way to stop it, and he had to deal with it. He also felt relieved somehow. He had done something for his wife.

When the doorbell rang at half past seven, he flinched violently. Of course it was Tyler. He was picking John up for school, when the telephone rang later to inform Rose that she had a few hours off because a client canceled, Jack was ready to rip the phone out of the wall and smash it.

He was exploding with fear. It had been a terrible idea to write the mail. Why had he ever gotten that stupid idea? He was so close to tell Rose, but he wanted it to be a surprise. He had to deal with it!

"Jack?"

He jumped like a child just caught in the act of drawing on the walls. It earned him lifted eyebrows from his wife.

"What's wrong?" She tilted her head so slightly like she always did when she was trying to figure him out. Of course she had sensed that something wasn't right. But he couldn't just tell her and ruin it. If they didn't reply to his mail, all the effort would have been for naught and then he had told her about it and she would be disappointed.

"Just didn't sleep..." Well, it wasn't a lie at least.

"What did you do the whole night?"

"Writing emails." Wasn't a lie either.

"Sunny?"

He nodded. That was a lie.

"I'm sure she's having trouble with a lot of things, but you need your sleep too." Now she was talking to him as if he was the child.

He sighed, began to calm down a little. Rose had that effect on him, she was able to calm even his most raging emotions. Hell, she could calm _Jack._

"Later..."

"I'll get some groceries. John's out of school an hour later today, I'll pick him up on my way home." She told him, kisses his forehead and walked out of the living room.

He sat down on the couch and decided to take a nap there.

\---

A whole week he didn't get a reply to his email and he had almost forgotten about it. Maybe they hadn't gotten it, maybe they didn't look, maybe they didn't care. Jack was glad he hadn't told Rose about it. It spared her the disappointment and him the explanations.

He was sitting in the living room, watched John play one of his beloved video games when the doorbell rang.

"Tyler!" John let go of the controller and dashed to the front door. Rose had been faster and Jack was about to get up and leave the living room to be free of Tyler's stares (The boy used every second  of free time to stare at him in amazement), when Rose let go of a cry of surprise.

Jack peeked into the hallway, shocked to see an elderly couple standing there and he had no idea who he was looking at then the woman, warmly smiled at him while she was hugging Rose tightly. She was wearing a rose colored coat, mostly gray  hair. It was blond in the back, she was a little chubby. Brown eyes,  smaller than Rose.

And Jack could only stare.

"Mom..." Rose was at a loss for words. "How...?"

She turned to Jack as he felt his cheeks heat up in embarrassment. "I... I had Sunny look into it..."

"Dad, who are they?" John asked silently, tugging at his pants.

"...Your grandparents."


	3. Malls

He stared at the Info-booth of the mall, almost glared at the woman who eyed him as if he was going to slice her apart. Of course she forced her trained be-nice-to-all-customers smile on her face. Of course she didn't make a remark. He hated malls. Too little open space, too many people, too much noise. Way too many people.

At least he didn't feel the stares from behind. A man in a suit was nothing uncommon here. A cyborg in a suit was a little more intimidating. Especially to that brown haired woman in front of him. There was a counter and a glass panel between them. Apparently she didn't think it would keep him at bay if he tried something funny. Of course it wouldn't. But he wasn't here to do that.

"I'm... looking for my son." He finally said, made a displeased grunt when the woman's eyes widened in disbelief.

 _Why do they always think that having a child is impossible..._ he sighed.

He stepped back a little. "He's about this tall, blond, dressed in a blue shirt... His name is John."

The woman nodded dutifully and relayed the information through a speaker. Jack growled. It wasn't John's fault, of course not. The boy had been looking at toys, Jack had been looking at the prices. And then John was gone from sight. He had been panicking, rushed through the whole toy store, yelled the boys name. And then he ended up here.

"You need to wait here." The woman informed him and he stepped to the side, glanced at all the marble columns, the bright lights, the mirrors. He looked away from those and focused on the floor when he saw someone walk up to the booth.

He inched away a little more, then looked up and frowned at the man with the dark blonde, almost brown hair. He had a sheepish smile on his lips, sunglasses on top of his head. Held a few bags, dressed in pretty casual clothing. Jack couldn't shake the feeling that he knew that man.

Where had he seen him before?

The other man was looking for a child too, apparently. The woman told him the exact same thing and the man stepped aside, stood next to Jack.

Jack glanced at him once more. He definitely knew that person, but his name escaped him. Also where did he knew him from?

The slightly shorter man glanced up at him, studied his hair, his face. Gaze lingered on the scar, then his eyes widened. "Raiden?!" A few people turned their heads at his sudden loud voice.

Jack knew this obnoxious voice but he still couldn't place it.

"Are you Rai-"

"Yes." Jack replied quickly. Who was this guy...? it was obvious now that they knew each other.

"Man... you look so different, almost didn't recognize you."

Raiden lifted an eyebrow. "What?"

The man looked at him, made a headphone motion around his ears. "You know? A-and the jaw."

He probably hadn't seen Jack in a while then. He knew the combat body at least. But from where?

"Are you going to be okay though? The white blood thing, you know? I don't know much about it but..." he trailed off.

White blood. _That_ long ago?

"It's fine. It's been replaced." Jack muttered quickly, didn't want to spill too much on it without knowing who the guy really was. Maybe he was a spy or something. You never knew.

"Oh, that's good!" the man laughed awkwardly, rubbed the back of his head and accidentally dropped the sunglasses. Jack caught them before they could clatter to the ground.

"S-sorry... Thank you." The man quickly took them back, replaced them on his head.

"You're still not very talk active..."

 _Might be because I have no idea who you are._ Jack thought.

"What would you want to talk about?"

"How you've been! I haven't seen you in at least 5 years. You rushed past us in outer haven, sizzling and snapping and I've never seen you again."

And then Jack realized who the man was. "Johnny..."

"Yes?"

"Never mind. How are you and Meryl doing?" He tried to sound casual but the woman led him to think about Campbell, about what Rose had done. He clenched his fists, couldn't help but think there could have been a better solution for it all. It would have spared him a lot of emotional pain.

It wasn't Meryl's fault. They had betrayed her just as much.

"Oh, good." Johnny shrugged. "The usual. You know? Wife's and all."

"The usual?"

"Well... you're married too, aren't you?"

Jack smirked, a motion that seemed to frighten Johnny. The man gaped at him and moved a little closer. "I looks so real..." He almost whispered. "That's so cool."

Jack was about to shove him away when the man retreated and laughed sheepishly at the glare he received. He remembered why he had a hard time to get along with Johnny. Back then it had probably been a lot more annoying. Not that he wanted to remember any of it. Outer Haven and everything before and after... those weren't good memories. And Johnny had been an idiot. There wasn't much he saw of the man, but what he had seen made him cringe. Not that Jack himself was the most social person. He couldn't count all the awkward times he wanted a void in the ground to open and swallow him. However, Johnny seemed to be totally oblivious to these things. As if he didn't have any sense of shame at all. Maybe that was a good thing, though. Johnny wasn't a bad person, just hard to get along with. Not that Jack had seen much of him between stopping Outer Haven and almost dying. He didn't want to remember any of this.

"W-well... technology progressed." Jack hissed silently.

"So cool!"

"I guess..."

 

"So what are you doing here? Thought you moved to the other half of the globe?"

Jack took a deep breath to calm himself. Johnny was not being intrusive, he just didn't know better. It amazed the cyborg how that man had lasted so long in the battle field and in daily life.

"Work." Jack muttered. It wasn't really work today. John had wanted to see where he worked, begged for months. He still wasn't sure why Rose had agreed on this, had said something about getting to know each other better. And for the next month, John would share a room with his father and live in Maverick's HQ.

"Oh?"

"PMC..."

Johnny's half smile dropped and he hung his shoulders as if he was extremely disappointed all of sudden. "Of course..."

Maybe that was the first time he saw Johnny seriously lost in thoughts, upset, maybe even disturbed. Who liked PMC's anyway. It wasn't that he did this because he wanted to.

"But you're so awesome!" Johnny protested loudly, making heads turn again.

Jack cringed and inched away a little.

"Can't help it." It wasn't that he hadn't tried to get a normal job. A person with a full cybernetic face might be easier to accept. Still, that last bit of his face was the only thing left of it, he wouldn't let go of it. Couldn't. Didn't want to. "The...face gives it away."

"You could always use make up or something." Johnny shrugged.

Jack scoffed. "...Believe me, we've tried. It comes off... doesn't stick to the artificial skin..."

Johnny opened his mouth to reply something when a woman spoke.

"Speaking of sticking, you might want to put Glue on your son, Jack."

Both men turned, saw Meryl standing there, a young girl on her arm, John next to her holding Meryl's hand.

John let go of the woman and dashed over to his father. "Dad!"

Jack picked him up and hugged him tightly, glad for the distraction Johnny had given him. It had kept his worry and fear at bay.

Meryl walked over to Johnny and pulled his ear. "Didn't I tell you to watch her? Huh?! John had to babysit her!"

Jack looked at his son who smiled brightly. "I found Evelyn next to an ice-cream stall. She was crying so I helped her find her mom..."

Jack smiled proudly. "You did a good job."

"Well..." John chewed on his lip. "I...was afraid too. I couldn't find you."

"Yeah... my fault. Got distracted. I'm sorry."

John shook his head. "It's okay. Now you're back. And Evelyn found her parents too."

The cyborg nodded, sat John back on the ground and took his hand. Meryl looked at him after she had given her daughter to Johnny.

"Let's go drink some coffee, hm? My treat." She grinned.

John had agreed to her before Jack even opened his mouth. "Yay!"

They settled down in the corner of a small café. Meryl taking care of the order as Johnny excused himself to the restroom.

"You want something too, Jack?"

The cyborg sighed, was about to shake his head, but Meryl looked at him so expectantly that he just went for a simple coffee. When the waiter walked away, John showed Evelyn how to use the crayons the waiter had given her on the paper with the figures.

Meryl leaned over the table a little, and looked at Jack for a moment before she spoke.

"You're looking a lot better." She smiled. "I don't mean this." She tapped her own jaw. "In general. Back when my father finally told me what was going on, I couldn't help but wonder how you were doing, how you took it."

He took a deep breath, shrugged. This really wasn't the best time to talk about this. It was never a good time to bring this up.

"What I mean is," Meryl continued, "I was worried. Rosemary and I had a short chat about it, and she told me what she did to you..." the woman frowned as if disgusted. "I mean then I understood why you were so..."

"Suicidal?" Jack offered.

"Well... yeah." She sighed. "I hated my father for a long time. But I hated her more... I couldn't understand her actions at all. How... why would someone do this to someone they love..."

"Meryl," Jack muttered. He was getting nervous now, didn't want to hear it. "It's... in the past."

"I know!" Meryl hissed, bit her trembling lip and tears spilled over her cheeks. "I Know... But..."

Jack stared at her. Dumbfounded. Why was she crying?

"It just hurt! My father told me you were the father of Rosemary's kid and you didn't even know he existed for the first five years! Not just that, she tricked you!"

"Meryl..." Jack growled now. He had a hard time to keep his voice level and not just snap at her. "I don't want to talk about this."

Meryl flinched. "Sorry..." she took a deep breath, wiped her tears away and laughed at herself. "Living with Johnny for so long left some traces I guess."

Jack didn't reply when he glanced at John and Evelyn. It felt like someone had stabbed him for a second. John loved younger children, he played with them all day, never got tired. He had asked for siblings once.

Rose had mentioned adoption, yet with their limited budget that wouldn't be possible at all. He certainly couldn't just...  He shook his head and looked away when the waiter came back.

The mood was tense and Jack just wanted to leave. John was having fun though, so he decided to endure it.

Not that he liked it much.


	4. Baby Toys

Rummaging around in the attic was never fun. He wasn't even sure what exactly made him do it, he just knew he was covered in dust and old curtains somewhere in this cramped place and was about to reach out for the feather duster when the lights flickered out and he was left in complete darkness.

"Great." He sighed. "Rose! The fuse-"

"I'm on it, hon." He heard his wife from somewhere on the floor below him.

"Why am I doing this again?" He asked when the lights flickered back on and a palm sized spider lowered itself to his eye level.  He stared at it for a moment, blew the stray strands of hair out of his face and continued to go through the cardboard boxes.

"I wanted to show John a few pictures. They need to be here." Rose replied as she poked her head through the small hatch the ladder was attached to.

He sighed. The woman was so focused on all these pictures. There weren't many anyway, and that other box was always in the living room. He didn't even know there was another. "Again?"

Rose smirked. "Other pictures. The ones I actually put into an album."

"And why am I going through this mess?"

"Bugs." Rose muttered. "I hate bugs."

He arced an eyebrow at that and gaze at the spider that was still hanging in midair. Rose definitely hadn't seen it yet. "I don't like them either."

"But you're not afraid of them."

"Because they're harmless."

"For you."

He sighed and grabbed the curtain next to him, pulled it hard when it refused to give in to his grip and managed to make a few heavy boxed drop down on him.

"Jack!" Rose shouted when her husband got assaulted by the boxes and a small cloud of dust covered the area.

"I'm fine." Came his reply from somewhere below the pile.

He shoved the boxes aside, rubbed his head and stood again. He cursed silently and stared at Rose with a rather blank expression. "Did no one tell you not to put heavy stuff to the top?"

"The things just piled up. ...Is that blood?"

He scoffed and wiped the thin trail of blood on his forehead away. "Why do we even have this much stuff?"

"Most of this is from the other apartment... Jack, your head, it's bleeding."

"I'm fine. It's just a scratch."

"You come to the bathroom this instant, mister." She hissed and disappeared from sight.

The cyborg sighed, stepped over the fallen boxes and made his way down the ladder and into the bathroom. Rose was glancing at him with an apologetic look when he shook his head at her.

"I'm telling you, it's just a scratch."

"You always say that." She hissed. "Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Let me treat that..."

He sighed and lowered his head so she could access the wound better. He let her fuss around with it for a bit, then grabbed her waist.

"Jack? Are you alright?"

"Mhm. Just enjoying the view."

Rose realized what he was looking at and chuckled. "You sure you didn't hit your head too hard?"

He scoffed. "I got hit with heavier things."

"That Box had rocks in it... John used to collect that stuff. He didn't want me to throw it out."

He looked up at her, their noses almost touching. "How did you get it up there?"

"Actually, I didn't." She muttered, pulled his head down again and finished treating the wound. "There."

"Who did it?"

"Tyler's father."

Jack sighed. He was never home when Rose was struggling with something like that. "That's why it looks so messy up there, huh?"

"Well..." Rose laughed. "...mostly."

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "Why did you keep all this stuff from the old apartment?"

Rose moved her arms around his neck and looked into his eyes. "It's not just that stuff... there's..." she sighed.

"There's what?" He urged her on.

"Baby things from John... clothing, toys... you know?"

"You kept that?"

Rose smiled at him. "Mother's do that. In case there will be more, you know?" She regretted her words the moment she said them. He flinched and pulled away.

Her chest felt tight when he saw his devastated glance. "Jack... you know I didn't mean it like that."

He refused to look at her and turned around to leave the room when she grabbed his wrist. It would have been easy for him to twist out of her grip, but he stopped.

"...I love John." Jack whispered. "And I should be grateful with just him. He means the world to me, Rose... but..."

"Don't apologize..." Rose muttered and hugged him from behind. "I... stole those five years from you..."

"No." He argued. "It was my own fault."

"I told the lie." She insisted.

He sighed. "It won't change even if we argue about it..."

Rose held him tighter. "There's adoption, you know?"

"Too expensive."

"Artificial-"

"Then it wouldn't be mine..." His words were so full of sadness, Rose felt as if they stabbed her. "And that costs money too."

She sighed, rested her forehead against his back before she let go of him and pulled him back to the ladder. "I want to show you something." She muttered and climbed up the ladder.

"I thought you didn't like the bugs?"

"I don't care about them right now."

Once both of them were in the attic, Rose began to look around under curtains and covers, then located a few plastic boxes. "Here, get them to the living room."

He didn't say anything when he carried the boxes to the living room and returned to her. She had stacked up a few more boxes and he carried them down too. Rose joined him in the living room not much later.

"What's in them?" He asked when he tried to peek through the translucent white boxes.

"Open them."

He sat down on the carpet and took the lid off the closest box, was surprised to find clothing in there. Tiny clothing. Baby clothing. Carefully as if the fabric would tear apart if he held it too tightly he took a tiny t-shirt out of the box. It was white, had a blue whale printed on it.

"John's...?"

"Mhm." Rose smiled. "That's all of his clothing from when he was little. Well, the those he didn't ruin while trying to imitate his father." She smirked.

He chuckled and emptied the box onto the carpet. Below all the clothing he found a plush animal and he froze when he picked it up. It was a blue dog, didn't look like it had ever found its way into the hands of the child it had been intended for. The fur was short but soft, the ears had different fabric in bright colors. Even the price tag was still on it. It had a tiny tear in it, likely from being stored in a box for who knows how long.

The tag told that it was few babies, to train various senses on it.

And Jack knew exactly where the toy had been from, how long he had walked through the aisles until he found something he thought was worthy for the baby he was going to be the father of. He had forgotten about it. Thought Rose had thrown it out. It wouldn't have surprised him.

It surprised him to find it now.

"You... kept this?" he asked in disbelief as he turned the toy around and looked at it from all angles.

Rose nodded slightly, felt a lump in her throat. "I... never gave it to him... I wanted to, but every time I tried I..." She bit her lip and took a deep breath. "Every time I tried I remembered what I did to you..."

Jack smiled sadly at her. "Well... now he's too old for this stuff..." He sighed, threw the dog in the air and caught it again.

"It's still his first toy."

"I'm pretty sure he'd think we're nuts..."

Rose smiled. "...well. His daddy picked it. I'm sure he'd let it slide."

Jack snorted. "How about a real dog?"

"I'll give you the same answer I'm giving John all the time. No."

"Please?" The cyborg asked, set the toy on the coffee table and leaned over to Rose, imitating John's puppy-eyed look when he really wanted something.

Rose began to laugh but shook her head.

"Dogs are fun, you can teach them all kinds of stuff."

"And they leave nasty little surprises on the carpet."

"They're loyal."

"And dirty."

"And really nice buddies."

Rose sighed. "I have no time for a dog... John's in school until three and you're overseas most of the time."

"Weren't these Robotic pets getting popular?"

Rose lifted her eyebrows. "John doesn't like them. He says they're dumb. Tyler has one, you know?"

Jack sighed. "Alright. No dog. Something else?" He asked and plucked the toy from the coffee table.

"I'll think about it." Rose smiled and put the clothing back into the box when Jack left the living room.

He returned after a few minutes and Rose was wondered where the toy had gone, but quickly forgot about it when John stormed into the house, Tyler in tow.

"We're home!" The boys announced.

"And running through the house with shoes on." Jack muttered from the kitchen. "Shoes out or you're cleaning the whole hallway."

Both boys grumbled, took their shoes off and stormed upstairs. Rose joined her husband in the kitchen, watched as he flipped through a cooking book.

"Where'd the toy go?"

Jack put and arm around her and smirked. "Wait for it."

Rose furrowed her brows, began to giggle when she heard John from upstairs.

"Mom! What's that about?!"  The boy raced downstairs, the blue dog in his hand.

Rose opened her mouth but Jack replied for her after he had turned around to face his son.

"You know," Jack muttered and gently poked the shoulder of the boy. "I kind of bought this for you when you were still in your mother's belly... But I lost it... So I'm giving it to you now."

John stared at his father in disbelief. "You waited this long?"

"Mhm..."

The boy hugged the tall man with a bright smile. "I don't play with baby toys  anymore... But I'll keep it, because it's from you!"

Jack smiled at him and ruffled his hair. "You don't need to keep it if you don't want to."

"I want to!" The boy argued and scrunched up his nose before he dashed back to his room.

In the evening when Jack had tucked the boy in and gave him a good night kiss, he spotted the toy in the small glass cabinet next to the tiny model of the HF-Blade that Kevin had gotten from who knows where.

At least the Toy had finally found its way to its actual owner.

"Dad... turn the lights off already..." John grumbled and Jack silently slipped out of the room after he turned the lights off.

"Good night, John."

 


	5. Home

Turning the key in the front door of the small house for the first time was maybe something magical, something strange, frightening. He was hit by a wave of strange new smells. Fresh wood, plastic, concrete. Something sweet. The ground below his shoes was plain concrete, the walls without wallpaper. Stairs were halfway covered in white tiles.

While he had paid for the house, Rose had done the picking of everything else. The colors of the tiles, wallpaper, curtains. The kitchen. It was a cheap house. Cheaper than he could have hoped for. It was barely five years old and looked out of place in the neighborhood. They were almost completely alone here. Two houses on the other side of the road, a whole neighborhood down a road on the left. This was home now.

The house was devoid of any human life for the time being. Rose had told him she wouldn't be there when he arrived and stored the key under the doormat. It had been a foolish thing to do, but the Key was still there when he arrived and he had inspected it for almost a full minute before he finally shoved it into the lock. It was a brand new key, no key chains on it yet. He hadn't once been to this house before, had to work while Rose moved in with John. He could only imagine how it must have been like for the two.

Had they struggled much? Rose had told him that it would be cheaper to just buy new furniture rather than keep the old and have it relocated. He had to agree. The house was sparsely furnished at best. Next to the staircase at the far end of the hallway was a door, bright light from a window in the room flooded into the hallway. He peeked into the room, recognized it as the laundry room when he saw the washing machine. It wasn't yet connected to the water supply, part of it still covered in plastic wrap. How had Rose done the laundry?

The room had no tiles, no wallpaper or any speck of paint. On the ceiling he saw naked cords sticking out, no lamp. He looked around in the tiny room once more, then retreated and headed to the right. This was probably supposed to be the kitchen. He saw flat cardboard boxes stacked onto each other, some labeled, some half opened. Cabinets he assumed. There was a tiny table in the far corner of the room, two chairs at it. There was a plate with cake under a plastic wrap. The floor had tiles, the walls too, halfway. Not done yet either.

There was the stove, the small display on it told him that it was operational. The window to his left was directed to the road outside. He could see the green bushes directly under the window and the white fence that went around the front yard. The sun was shining, illuminating the last days of summer. It had already gotten chilly, not that he cared about it much.

He left the kitchen and went straight ahead to another door. The living room, he concluded. Beige carpet covered the floor, a pale lavender wallpaper on the walls. There was a lamp on the ceiling. It was an artwork of swirls decorated with glass flowers that faintly reminded of roses. He didn't want to think about the price of that thing. The house, albeit cheap, had still taken a chunk of their budget. It was easier to keep some money, now that maintenance was easier and he was able to do some things on his own. It still sent shivers down his spine when he actually had to switch filters or other things. Mental shivers. The body couldn't shiver. The sensation still felt real though.

He gazed around the room, there was the flat screen TV, John's play station connected to it. That thing had been quite the investment. He had bought it for John just a few months ago for his seventh birthday. He would never forget the look on the boy's face, the undeniable disbelief at actually getting this thing. It had been worth it, and he and Rose got some fun out of it every once in a while too.

The coffee table was full of magazines. A cup with half finished coffee sat on it, a glass with water next to it. A colored straw was sitting in it. Even though the house was barely finished on the inside, it was full of life already.

Finally he went upstairs. There were three doors. One straight ahead, one on the left and one on the right. On the ceiling he noticed a hatch. Probably the attic. There were no lights yet, but he noticed a night light being plugged into a socket in the wall. It had a calming blue light, probably to help John navigate to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Maybe Rose too.

He went to the left, looked at the white door that had a sheet of paper stuck onto it. John had scrawled 'Please Knock' onto the paper and apparently taped it on with tape that had lucky clovers and rainbows on it.

He carefully opened the door and peeked into the room. The windows had cream colored curtains, walls a pale blue, beige carpet like the one in the living room. The room was tiny. Lego was sprawled all over the floor and the bed, even on the desk where math homework of the boy was sitting. Half finished. Drawings were taped to the walls. Drawings of families, their family. Dogs and cars, swords. On the desk he also noticed lots of rocks and leafs before he left the room again and went to inspect the room in the middle.

The bathroom. It was tiny as well, a bathtub with a shower, toilet, sink. A rug in front of the bathtub, a single naked light bulb on the ceiling, a mirror. Rose's and John's toothbrushes, Rose's perfume, towels. Hastily shed clothing on the tiled floor. It was Rose's, He didn't need a full second to recognize the clothing. Shaking his head he picked up the mess, folded it neatly and sat it on the heater before he left the room to inspect the last room.

Their bedroom. The bed he would be sleeping in for the next few weeks until he had to return to work. It was spacious, definitely enough space for both of them. The right side was neatly made, the other messed up, blanket half on the floor, sheets tangled. The night stand was overflowing with used tissues, books, half finished glasses of water.

"At least that hasn't changed." He whispered with a smile. This was their home now, unfinished and flawed like their family. It fit, he thought while he walked over to the window on the right. No curtains, the view clear on the road below.

A black car pulled up to the house and his heart leapt when he saw the small boy climb out. John. Rose said something to him while she shut the driver's side door and walked up to the front door. The boy was carrying a school bag, jumped up and down impatiently when Jack left the window and headed downstairs. He briefly thought about hiding, but Rose had been too fast in opening the door. He stood there, frozen at the end of the staircase and was almost tackled to the ground by the boy that ran into him with a squeal.

"Dad! You're home!" the boy yelled in excitement, grinned when he was picked up by the cyborg.

"Do you like the house? I do, it's so big! But the kitchen isn't done yet and mom is still terrible at cooking."

Jack shot Rose a look, smirked at her and turned to John with a serious expression. "Don't be mean."

The boy scrunched up his tiny nose. "Don't try the cake, it's awful. But at least it smells good."

"John..." Rose couldn't hold back her amusement.

"Mhm." Jack smirked when he ruffled the boys hair and gave him a tight squeeze before he sat him on the ground again.

The boy darted into the living room and it didn't take a minute before he was fully emerged in his videogames.

"Game's more important than dad?" Jack lifted his eyebrow at that.

"He's still so hyped about the new house..." Rose tried to apologize. "How do you like it?"

"It's nice." He muttered. "Lots of work to do."

Rose nodded. "We'll get it done. How was the flight?" She came closer to him, wrapped her arms around him.

"The usual. Pretty boring, lots of staring, questions, glares." He shrugged.

Rose sighed. "I missed you."

He nodded, held her tightly. "Missed you too..."

 

 


	6. Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!WARNING!!
> 
>  
> 
> This is very angsty and somewhat emotional.

It had been a while since she had last had to wake him up because of a nightmare. She usually just let him go through it, he'd wake up on his own. They'd talk about it and most of the time he even managed to get back to sleep.

This time though, was one of the nightmares that held him captive in a place where he couldn't escape from. He had once told her that those nightmares were always about the same thing, but he never told her what it was. Those were the worst.  He was grumbling and hissing names, called for help. His body was shaking, not enough to be considered unusual by an outsider during a nightmare, but Rose knew how to interpret it. And the fact that this even showed, meant that he was going through something incredibly stressing.

When tears rolled down his cheeks she put a hand on his shoulder and shook him lightly. "Jack..."

Her husband didn't react right away. She hadn't expected him to. Sometimes it took long minutes until she was finally able to get through to him. At times she even had to yell because he'd scream. This time he was silent. Whimpers escaped him and he tried to move away from her touch.

'No!' he grumbled, like a child forced to do something it absolutely didn't want to do, sort of frightened. He clawed the sheets and tensed as if in pain, tangled in the blanket as if it was the only thing that could keep him from whatever monsters his nightmares had forced onto him.

Rose  grabbed his shoulder once more, this time he screamed. A high pitched scream, as if he was in terrible pain. Rose gasped in shock and surprise, immediately took her hand away.

"Jack!" she yelled, more out of a reflex than really wanting it. "Wake up!"

It was no use, she knew that. He would wake up eventually, but it pained her to see him like this. Afraid to touch him again, as to not frighten him even more, she waited. Silently, watched his scrunched up face in the dim light of the lamp on her nightstand. The tears reflected the light, disappeared into the pillow and left dark stains. He was gasping for air, almost as if it was too hard to breathe. Rose reached out a third time, firmly grasped his shoulders and shook him slightly. As expected he tried to escape from her grip, grunted and whimpered, even begged.

Rose wrapped her arms firmly around him, grabbed his hair. Gently, but firm enough to make him feel it. When he relaxed Rose let go of the breath she had been holding. It wasn't over yet. She knew when he wrapped his arms around her and sounded as if he was choking on his own breath. He clung to her as if she was a lifeline. A lighthouse in the blackness of the sea. Choked sobs escaped him, swallowed by tears and desperate gasps for air, even thought there was more than enough in the room.

"Shh." She whispered. "Breathe slowly, deeply."

She didn't like it. Who would have? Usually waking up after a nightmare was filled with relief. A distant fear that slowly vanished and peaceful dreams would follow soon after. With him it was different. Although it hadn't happened in a while that he woke up like this. He was confused, in panic. Whatever the nightmare had been about, it had terrified him to the very core.

It took long for him to calm down even a little. He was still clinging to her, but at least he didn't sound as if he would faint at any second anymore. She ran a hand over his back, the other gently buried in his hair, holding him. When he rested his forehead on her shoulder she knew it was over.

He was trembling.

"Shit..." he cursed silently.

She shook her head, kissed his hair. "It's okay." She reassured him.

"...what time is it?"

Rose turned to peek at her alarm clock, then turned back to him. "4:56 am."

"Sorry..." he apologized, slowly backed away. "And it's Sunday too..." He sat up, wiped the sweat off his face.

"This is _absolutely_ fine." She said, her face serious. "But we had an agreement." She reminded him.

He hung his shoulders, remembering that she had made him promise that he would try to explain what these nightmares were about when he had them again.

"Rose..."

He had this expression on his face that was something close to embarrassment and hopelessness. He had always looked at her like that when she had asked something seemingly impossible from him. Ever since she had first met him.

She leaned against the headboard after she propped her pillow against it and waited patiently. He didn't move for a full minute, eyes wandering around, nervous. He was looking for words, not quite finding them.

"How did you feel like?" She asked, tried to give him something to work with.

He laughed humorlessly, eyes turning away from her. She let him, waited.

"...Scared."

"Was there more?"

She noticed that he tensed, obviously remembered something that upset him. She wouldn't push him, not with this. Whatever it was, it had to be worse than all the nightmares about wars and losing his family. He sometimes even made jokes about those, by now. This is kind of nightmare had a large question mark  above it. She couldn't tell what they were about at all.

"It was bright..."

Rose nodded. Light didn't have to be anything bad. A symbolic meaning maybe.

"I-it's not really ...something my mind makes up."

That sentence hit Rose like a rock. She tried not to let it show, but was already fumbling for all possible solutions. She knew there were a lot of unresolved issues with him, some of which might never be fixed.

"Want to tell me what it is?"

He hung his head, but she caught his emotionless smirk before his face disappeared from her field of vision. He grabbed his shoulder, turned his head into the opposite direction from her. "...I can't..."

"Try it." She encouraged him.

"...It's hard..."

"Try starting with something, anything. It doesn't have to make sense."

He swallowed hard, nodded slowly to himself. "...It's bright... and silent... except there's this really loud sound... but it's not there all the time..." He shivered visibly, clenched the sheets in his fists. "There are people... I don't know how many..." he trailed off, stared at the ground as if he was ashamed.

"Do they say anything?"

He shook his head. "...I don't know how I got there... or what happened... but it's really, really bright. It hurts my eyes..." he put his hands over ears. "It's so loud... but when I tried to hold my ears, it won't work..." a choked sob escaped him, panic creeping up again.

Rose moved closer to him. "Jack, this is not really happening right now." She reminded him. "Open your eyes."

He complied after a few seconds, took his hands down and seemed confused for a moment, before he shook his head and scoffed at himself. "I'm sorry..."

"Don't apologize, this is nothing bad. You had this with different things, remember?"

"Yeah..." he looked at her, smiled nervously. "... You told me it was okay to be scared..."

"It is perfectly okay." She nodded. "What else happens in this bright room?"

And there it was again, that frightened look. His blue eyes looked like ice in the dim light of the lamp, as if they'd bore into his soul. His left not so much, but to someone who didn't know it wasn't real, it wouldn't make a difference. She wasn't bothered by it either. It was the gaze of him that bothered her. Terror and fear so clearly displayed that she had to break eye contact. Subtle, slowly, so he wouldn't think anything of it.

He gripped his shoulders, dug his fingers into the fabric of the shirt he hadn't bothered to take off when he went to bed.

"Pain." He whispered. "...it hurts... just at some places in the beginning.... and then everywhere... a-and it doesn't stop... it just gets worse and worse and I try to scream but no sound comes out and... I'm begging for them to stop... but they don't hear me... and..." He paused, fear chased away by confusion and anger. "...They don't listen... they just continue..."

Rose swallowed hard, started to get an idea what this was about. She almost regretted that she had asked, but she knew he needed to talk about it. "Jack, this is not real right now." She reminded him once more, this time it didn't quite work.

"But it is! It was... it... it happened." Tears spilled, dropped onto the shirt and blanket. He made a half hearted attempt to wipe them away. "No matter how much I screamed, no one heard it... and if they did, they didn't care..."

One hand touched his neck, the other briefly ran over his jaw.  That was all proof Rose needed to understand what exactly this nightmare was about. Her hands began to tremble slightly and she felt a lump in her throat. She fought against her own tears for a long moment before she was able to speak firmly again.

"You seem to remember it very clearly."

He looked away again. "... Can we stop this now?"

Rose nodded immediately. This had to be touched on again, but differently. For now this was alright. It gave her a basic idea of what she was dealing with and how to deal with it.  It was plain torture with a terrible outcome. But she kept that to herself.

"Of course. Thank you for telling me."

He sighed, slumped back into the pillows and watched her. She leaned in, ran a hand through his hair and had to bite her lip to suppress her own tears. There was no way he could have ignored it, and of course he picked up on it, but instead of asking questions he just wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

"...It's fine." He muttered. "...I just  have nightmares about it sometimes..."

 


	7. Flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-MGS2
> 
> I am aware of all teh He/She errors, I'll fix them in the next few days. Sorry about that haha.

She was battling a massive headache, the rain was a downpour. Today she would finally be free from the _job_ for a day or two. After she had sent the last results in, they cut her some slack. She wondered why, but she certainly wasn’t going to question it. And if it meant a day or two away from this mentally unstable and quite annoying person, she would gladly take it without any complaints.

Jack wasn’t ugly, or had really weird habits; he was just not what she wanted in her life. She wanted someone who didn’t just accept everything. The guy was like a puppet. Empty. Sometimes she questioned if he was even a real man. Robots got popular in the recent years, but she deemed the thought absurd.

After stopping at a coffee shop she slowly made her way through the streets to her apartment. Her umbrella barely kept the downpour away from her and it was really cold. She knew it had been a bad idea to wear a skirt today instead of jeans. There was nothing to do against it now, except take a hot shower, or maybe even a bath. Yes. A bath sounded nice. When she had almost reached the apartment, she saw him.

He was standing at the door, his jacket over something in front of him. His gray shirt was drenched, glued to his skin, same with his hair. He was pressing himself into the doorway, tried to shield himself from the rain. The lack of a decent roof above made this quite hard. Rose turned around. The umbrella was new, he hadn’t seen it before. She was wearing a skirt and pumps today. He wouldn’t notice.

And so she made her way back to the coffee shop, remembered that he often stopped by here, and went to a different one. When she put the umbrella aside she slumped down on a chair, massaged her temples. This one day off and he decided to show up. Sometimes she considered snapping his neck. But that would be a waste of research material. And the possible threat to her family. She still didn’t know where they were.

Would she ever see them again anyway? Perhaps they were dead already. She had no way of knowing, and Jack was pretty much at fault for that. If he hadn’t existed they would have chosen someone else. Rose thought that was a pretty good reason to hate him, even if he had no idea. Sometimes she pitied him for being so naïve. Other times she wanted to slam his head against a wall for being such an idiot. Anyone would have noticed by now that something was off, that this girlfriend he thought he had was nothing but a lie.

Anyone but him. He was so blinded by the thought of having someone like him that he didn’t bother to question. Even when she willingly messed up, left notes lie around he just ignored their existence. It was as if he deliberately ignored anything that would hint at her not being who he thought he was. She had no idea if he did it subconsciously or not. She didn’t know him well enough to judge that. Sometimes she thought he was playing with her, but he was way too naïve for that. Oblivious to the cruel world, even though he must’ve witnessed it countless times already. There was no way a man who stayed up all night for no obvious reason, had nothing to hide.

And still deep down in her cold and aching heart, she had grown fond of him. Even now she kept thinking about him. She had no idea why, but in a way she saw herself in this man. Sometimes.

She too had a lot to hide. How would he react if he ever found out what she was hiding? She had no doubt that it would break his heart. She didn’t know if she was his first love, and she had no way of knowing. He certainly wouldn’t tell. And his file only told her what she needed to know.

An hour had passed when she decided that she really needed that warm bath. She hoped that Jack had left, didn’t want to confront him. Not after this tiring day and all the terrible things she had thought about him. It was not his fault, he had no idea. And yet. She wished he would figure it out. He was so painfully dumb sometimes.

Jack hadn’t left. And she stood there, stared at him from several yards away. He was freezing; one didn’t need good eyes to see that. She briefly considered just walking past him, pretending she hadn’t seen him under her umbrella, he practically blocked the way and there was no way to lure him away. If he sent him a message to his phone to meet up somewhere she was required to show up there. On her day off. This was the first day in almost two years that she wasn’t required to spend her day with him. And now he was there.

She growled silently, hissed a few curses into the rain, took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second. She needed to be in character. It was just a game. Treat him like the pawn he was.

When she approached him he looked up, eyes wide in surprise, but his face quickly displayed joy. The smile made him look even younger than he was. He was older than her, not by too much. Looked way too young for his age. It didn’t help that he seemed to lack any facial hair. She hadn’t caught him shaving yet.

“You’re home.” He stated, any further words interrupted by a sneeze.

He turned away from her, apologized and took the jacket away from what he was holding. Rose assumed he had found a stray cat or a dog or something, and wanted her to take it in. She was preparing to refuse and make a scene to make him feel uncomfortable, but what he revealed weren’t cats or dogs.

Rose forgot her role for a second. Not long enough for him to notice, but she scolded herself. Flowers. Roses. In all colors. She would have never thought that the thought of a bouquet would ever cross his mind, and yet there it was. Something that was neither stated in her role nor in his profile. Something he did entirely on his own without even knowing if she would like it or not.

And she did like it. There was no restriction to this in her role. It had never been mentioned. She was allowed freedom in this decision. She could act the way she wanted.

And she did.

Maybe Jack wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Gently she took the flowers into her hands, stared at his blue eyes that seemed even colder in the darkish weather. They almost seemed to glow.

She leaned in to kiss him. Peppermint on his lips. It almost made her laugh. How long had he been standing there until she showed up? How long would he have stood there? He wrapped his arms around her and she could feel him shiver in the cold.

Wordlessly she pulled away and unlocked the front door, dragged him inside, out of the rain. The elevator wasn’t working again, and they had to climb up the six floors to her apartment. She wasn’t bothered by it; she had to do this every other day. He trailed behind, not by much. This was no effort to him either.

She almost yelled at him when she ordered him to take a hot shower immediately. He didn’t waste a second to argue and Rose headed to the kitchen to find something she could use as a vase for the flowers. After a while she found an actual vase, not remembering that she even had one.

When she headed to the bedroom to get a change of clothing, she glanced into the kitchen. Took in the sight of the flowers. What had crossed his mind when he decided to buy them? He wanted to surprise her, she assumed. But what was she supposed to do now? Almost everything else she did, except that bouquet, had to be done the way they had told her to. When she was alone, she could do as she pleased, but with him there were certain things she needed to do. She knew better than  to risk anything and drop her guard just because she was seeing him on a day off.

So she would do as the instructions said. Unless one of the situations where she was free to do what she wanted happened. And she was lucky. One of those did happen just a few hours later. They had been watching movies all evening, boring action movies Rose didn’t really want to see. This was another of the few situations where she had the freedom of choice.

When jack stood to get some more popcorn he stumbled into the coffee table and barely managed to break his fall by grabbing the armrest of the couch. One hand flew to his head, used the other to pull himself back onto the couch. He was dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie that belonged to her. Both were too big, a Christmas gift from a friend a while ago. She had barely used it, and gave it to him so he would have something to wear.

Rose was silent for a moment. She had to act in a certain way now, like a robot. Perhaps it wasn’t him who acted like a robot, but her after all.

“Are you feeling alright?” She asked, just according to instructions.

“Yeah. Just dizzy…” he muttered. “Didn’t think I drank that much…”

“You didn’t.” She replied silently. In fact, his glass filled with beer was still half full. And she knew he was able to take much more than that.

He slid to the side, almost landed on her lap. She moved her hand through his hair, something where she was allowed to do what she wanted as well. They didn’t put restrictions on how Far she went when it came to intimacy. It still made her feel uneasy that they had put cameras in her apartment. Well hidden. She hadn’t found them yet. But she did find the microphone they had put in her bed room. And she had crushed it. _Accidentally._ They never mentioned it, and Rose left it at that.

When her fingertips brushed over his forehead, she pulled her hand away. “That’s what you get for standing in the rain for hours.” She sighed and shook her head. He was such an idiot.

“…It was only two hours…”

She moved away, going through her head for how she was supposed to act during a situation like this. She couldn’t recall having read anything that involved it. Today must’ve been her lucky day. So many choices she was allowed to make, it almost felt like Christmas.

Back in the coffee shop she would have just left him alone, made sure he wouldn’t think anything of it and go sleep.  But when her gaze fell back onto the flowers she sighed. Perhaps every once in a while it was alright to act like a human being around him. He forgave everything, it was almost boring.

Still, she found that she enjoyed treating him like a human being too and not just a _job_. 

 Later on she found out that they hadn’t had her apartment under surveillance for that night. And she almost wished for another day off.

She wanted to act natural around him, let her real personality show when he was with him. She only time she could to that was outside, but even there she always felt their eyes on her back. And always the threat to her family.

How she wished to be free of all this.


	8. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post MGS 2, something really boring and lame... but i wanted to write it haha.  
> There isn't even any angst in it. WTH xD

The early morning on that April 30th felt unreal. Everything about it, the warm sunrise, the people, the faint smell of coffee. And _Him_. She hadn’t expected him to return to her, much less like that. The past 24 hours had completely changed her view of him. And his view on her probably too.

Neither of them spoke a word when they headed to her apartment because it was closest to their current location. Rose thought that it was better if it was hers. When his hand gently grasped hers she felt a smile on her face. Things were over now; they could maybe live normally, like all these other couples did. They had both spilled their darkest secrets, this morning felt like a fresh start.

A faint shred of hope filled her, hope to have the patriots out of her hair, of being able to act like herself around him. She almost felt overwhelmed, dropped her keys when she tried to unlock the front door of the apartment building she was living in. Only then she realized how badly she was shaking, reality pulling her out of her fantasy way too fast. Suddenly the scent of coffee was too much and made her feel sick. Jack didn’t like happy anymore, he looked tired and exhausted. She could only imagine how he felt.

He had been frightened a great deal of the time, had been ignored and was confused. Got caught by enemies, shot at. To Rose it was a miracle that he didn’t sustain any major injuries. There was a tiny cut on his cheek, but it would heal.

The building was cold, and made her shiver. The elevator was working for once and so she called it, chose to worry about everything later. Her happiness was washed away when Jack leaned against the wall, taking in deep breaths as he closed his eyes and tensed. Was he feeling sick?

“You-“ She cleared her throat, pressed the button for the sixth floor. “You okay?”

He scoffed silently, but didn’t reply. When they left the elevator he stumbled into her, grasped the air in a failing attempt to keep himself from falling over. She gripped his arm, tried to steady him as she walked through the corridor towards her apartment. He stumbled along, one hand on his head, cursed silently.

Rose unlocked the door, almost shoved him inside. He fell to his knees, weight shifting to the side and he hit the wall. He seemed to feel quite dizzy. Rose closed the door and crouched down next to him, worry creeping up at her. He had been fine an hour ago. She assumed that now everything was coming back to him, the time of not giving a care in the world way too short.

He clawed the suit, couldn’t get out of it fast enough. She had to help him, surprise and anger washed over her when she saw all the bruises on his body. She knew that the suit was designed to keep major damage away, but she was sure that he was in pain anyway.  When she stood to find something for him to wear he threw up on the carpet, apologized for it over and over again, even when Rose had already cleaned the mess and helped him into the bathroom.

Worry had taken over her thoughts by the time she had found a shirt and some pants he had left here not too long ago. He barely had any strength left to get to his feet, swayed dangerously when he entered the shower. In fear of him crashing into something she ordered him to sit down, washed his hair, questioned herself while she was doing so. He clearly was in no state of doing it himself, at the moment, yet she felt somehow embarrassed about it. 

She wasn’t sure how much of this he had even noticed when he was lying in her bed an hour later, exhaustion finally gripping him tightly enough to make him fall asleep. He had barely said anything, nothing that had any meaning. When she pulled the blanket over him she felt angry. It was her fault that things had ended up this way. She took part in it, even though she had no real idea about their greater plans.

Her cell phone ringing ripped her out of her thoughts. Instantly she darted for it and picked up, silently shut the bedroom-door.

“Oh you’re actually picking up!” a female voice sounded on the other side. A friend, some person she kept in touch with because she needed friends. The woman was out of her league, had a big house, a few cars. It was beyond Rose why she was even friends with someone like that, but things had happened like that.

Maybe she wasn’t really a friend, but an acquaintance to the character she had been playing.

“Good Morning.” Rose greeted her.

“I got tickets to that movie you mentioned a while ago, wanna go?”

Rose sighed, gaze lingering on the bedroom door. The movie wouldn’t go away. And if they had to they could watch it on DVD later on anyway.

“Sorry, I have to pass.”

“Why? You really wanted to see it.”

“There is something more important at the moment. I’ll call you back, alright?”

A sigh on the other end. “Alright. Don’t overdo it.”

Rose wanted to protest, but the call had already ended. She then realized how tired she was and pulled the curtains shut in the living room. The couch would do for a quick nap, she had done that countless times before.

And yet, when she was lying down, staring at the opposite wall, she couldn’t find any peace. Her mind was racing with everything that had happened and so many questions in her head that she had no idea what to think about first.

Would things really be alright now? There were a lot of things they needed to talk through.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somethin random... based on a few of my headcanons i wanted to explore.
> 
> Hope you like it anyway :3

Jack shook his head when John’s RC-Car landed in the pool of the hotel room. The boy had just gotten it from his grandfather a few hours ago. John and his parents had been invited by Rose’s parents to a quite expensive hotel and Rose was currently shopping with her parents while Jack and John were playing inside during the downpour outside.

“Daaaad…” John complained. “It fell in.”

Jack sighed, crossed his arms and didn’t make a move to get up from the chair he was sitting on. “And now what?”

“Can you get it out?” John asked silently fumbling around with the remote for the car. “It’s on the deep part… I’m scared to dive down there…”

The cyborg grimaced and slowly got to his feet to look into the pool. There was a net, but the attached handle wasn’t long enough to reach the car.  John bit his lip in frustration when his father snarled at the water.

“Please?” the boy asked silently. “It’ll break if I can’t dry it off, right?”

“Chances are it’s already fried.” Jack responded silently and took off the shirt he was wearing and checked the water once more. He was looking at the number that indicated how deep the water was. The body would be able to withstand that, but that didn’t make him feel better about the situation.

“…You can swim, right?” John wanted to know, wondered why that question had never occurred to him before.

“I know how to. Just never tried it with this body.” Jack muttered. “It’s waterproof, don’t worry about that.”

 “Okay…” The boy frowned slightly, scrunched up his nose in disagreement. “I-it’s okay. I’ll try to get it.” John muttered. It was clear that he didn’t want to go down that deep.

Jack sighed, ruffled the boy’s hair. “Don’t worry. See the tiles? I can stand on there. You could get a towel though, for the car.”

“Okay.” John nodded and rushed into the tiny bathroom to get a towel, while Jack grimaced at the water once more. “The things I do for you, kid… “ He muttered to himself before he jumped into the water.

John came back with two towels, found his father sitting at the edge of the pool, drenched but with the toy in one hand.

“You got it!” John squealed happily and eagerly wrapped one towel around the car before he handed the second to his father.

“Don’t drop it in there again. You’re right, it’s really scary down there.”

“I know!” John exclaimed. “Mom tried to talk me into diving down there but it’s just so dark…

“She got down there?”

John nodded. “She said you used to do that too… but that was before…”

Jack smiled and got back to his feet, used the towel to dry his hair.

“Dad?” the boy asked curiously as he followed the man’s wet footprints on the stone tiled floor, “Can you fix the car if it’s broken?”

Jack hung his shoulders. “I can try…”

“I just got it… and I don’t want grandpa to think that I don’t take care of my things… it really was an accident…”

“I’m sure he’ll believe that if you tell him.”

“He told me not to drive it into the pool…”

Jack smirked. “I told you that too, didn’t I?”

John smiled bashfully, “Right…”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no words for this crap.... just deal with it.

 

„Dad, do you have brothers and sisters?“ John’s question was innocent and without any bad intention. The boy had no idea what it did to his father, how it sent his thoughts spiraling down way back into his early childhood. John would most likely never find this out.

Jack shook his head. “I don’t.” He didn’t know. What if he had siblings? There was no way he would have ever found that out. He never knew the name his parents had given him, not even his real birthday. He couldn’t tell John, couldn’t put that burden on a child.

John grimaced. “Man that sucks.”

Jack frowned, tried to shove his thoughts as far away as possible. “How so?”

“Because I’m an only child… you are one… and mom has three siblings!” The boy huffed and crossed his arms.

Jack didn’t quite understand what John was getting at, but he got a good idea. Afraid to ask, he didn’t reply to his son.

“What I mean is… Tyler gets a little sister… and I thought it would be cool to have a sister or a little brother…” He was fidgeting with his shirt now, somehow seemed to feel embarrassed yet curious.

The cyborg bit down hard on his lower lip and held his breath for a second. He couldn’t blame John for a question like this. Normal nine year olds asked things like these.

John grabbed one of the decorative stones Rose kept on the coffee table and halfheartedly played around with it.

“You want a sibling?” Jack asked after a moment, tried to keep his voice even and calm.

John nodded without turning his gaze away from the stone in his hands. A second later he looked up, seemed kind of excited. “I could show them lots of things! And I can teach them how to read and write and dress, and I can play with them when you and mom are too busy... and I’ll always be nice to them…” the boy spoke as if he wanted a pet, the same pleading voice. It almost broke his father’s heart.

Jack stayed silent, then patted the empty space next to him on the couch. John eagerly sat down, looked up at his father with big and curious eyes.

“It’s not possible.” The man eventually muttered.

“If it’s because of the money, in a few years I can work too-“

“It’s not about the money.” Jack immediately interrupted. His tone didn’t allow any back talking.

John hung his shoulders. “…You don’t want a second child?”

Jack closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “That’s not what I was saying.”

“But-“ John tried again, his voice cracking. Jack knew the boy was going to cry if this dragged on for longer. “Almost everyone in my class has a sister or a brother…”

“John…”

The boy shook his head. “…I can help with the baby… I could feed it… and I can even change diapers! I once changed them on Betsy’s little brother…”

Jack turned to face his son, gently placed his hands on the tiny shoulders. “John, listen to me.”

The boy frowned, but nodded slightly.

“I know you would be a great big brother, I know you would do everything you just told me and you would never complain, but-“

John bit his lip, tried to hold back tears but failed miserably. “Then why not?” he sniffed. “I know they’re not always fun… and they break stuff, but that’s because they don’t know better, right?... and sometimes they get annoying… Curtis complains about his little sister all the time… but I promise I will be nice. I know I’m being a brat… but I really, really want a sibling…“

Jack picked the boy up and pulled him into a tight hug, couldn’t stand to see him cry. “I know, John… You’re not being a brat.”

The boy froze, then wiggled free of the hug and looked at his father. “But you won’t change your mind… right?”

“I’m sorry.”

The boy wrapped his arms around his father and fought more tears. “I guess if I can’t change your mind I should give up on it… mom said ‘ask dad’ …”

“She did?” Jack asked silently, rubbed the boy’s back to calm him.

“Mhm… She said you would explain why I can’t have a sibling…”

Jack sighed in annoyance. Rose still could be one hell of a bitch sometimes. “I’ll explain, okay?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

John only nodded, curious about hearing the explanation.

“…My body is… well it’s not human.”

John looked at his father as if he had just told him that grass is green. “Daaaad, I know that…”

“There’s…” Jack fumbled for words, not sure how to explain it properly. “It’s… I… can’t… I’m missing what’s needed… to make a baby.” His voice was almost inaudible, but John had listened and realization finally dawned on the boy.

John suddenly looked incredibly guilty. “…I won’t ask again.” He whispered, not quite knowing what to say.

“I’m sorry…” Jack muttered.

John shook his head, hugged his father again. “I’ll just have a bunch of children when I’m grown up.”

Jack chuckled, felt sort of defeated. “Sounds like a plan…”

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i realize these one-shots are greatly determined by what goes through my mind throughout the day.

John hurried to unlock the front door, managed to get his shoes off and put the jacket on a hanger, even managed to get to the first step of the staircase, until his father noticed him.

“You’re back early.” Jack said from the kitchen, he was probably making lunch, like he always did when John’s mother worked until five and he was home.

“They cancelled the last lesson-“ John quickly said, made it up one more step before his father peeked out of the kitchen. John quickly turned to face the staircase and  headed upstairs.

“Again?”

John flinched. “Yeah. Miss Winter is sick or something.”

“John?” The man asked.

The boy froze, stood there unmoving for a minute before he replied, “Yeah?”

“Is everything okay in school?”

“Of course it is.” The boy replied quickly, maybe a little too fast. He skipped the last few steps upwards and quickly dashed into the bathroom. He heard his father say that lunch would be ready soon, shut the door and locked it.

He settled his backpack on the tiled ground and stared into the mirror. “Shit…” He whispered when he saw his face. While he wondered how he could hide the fact that he had gotten into a brawl yet again, he tried to find arguments that made it sound better than it was.

“He started it.” John whispered to himself as he opened drawers. “I only punched him because he wanted to hit me…” He sighed, found his mothers make up. “That could work… somehow.”

He dumped what he could find into the sink and stared at the mirror again. Carefully he touched the bruise on his cheek, winced. “Crap…” he hissed. “They’ll notice… school’s going to call too…” He hung his shoulders. “…I could ask Tyler to make up some excuse so I won’t have to eat lunch here…” He kept talking to himself. “…But dad already made it… He’s going to ask what happened…”

The boy sat down on the floor, stared at the door. “…But it was Curtis’ fault… His face was funny too.”He laughed to himself, stood again and took his backpack, then unlocked the door to give Tyler a call. He froze in place when he saw his father standing in front of the door with crossed arms and a stern look in his face. John knew he couldn’t hide his bruised face anymore and could only stare like a deer in headlights. A second later he darted for the opening to the left, tried to escape into his room, but got caught around the waist.

“Don’t even think about running.” Jack said impatiently. “You’ve been skipping school for the past three days.”

“That’s not even true!” the boy yelled, tried to struggle out of the grip. He knew it was useless to put up a fight, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.

“What happened to your face?” his father asked, grip not loosening in the slightest.

John growled, kicked him in the side. The man was unfazed by it, but grimaced anyway. “Nothing! Let go of me!”

“First you tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing is going on!” John screamed, clawed at his father’s face in hopes of being released, but no such thing happened.

“Why are you lying to me?”

John wanted to punch him for staying so calm. His mother would have yelled at least, but his father always pretended he wasn’t upset, when he clearly was.

“I’m not lying!”

“John!” Now he yelled. “If it’s something-“

“It’s nothing you can change!”

“Then what is it?!”

“You!” the boy screamed on top of his lungs now. “They’re picking on me because of you!”

John hadn’t expected to he set down to the ground, but now that he had said these words, all he could to was stand there and stare at his father. He wasn’t sure what was going through the man’s mind. He was never sure of that anyway.

“…You brought me to school that one day…” John tried, silently, bashfully. “And… now everyone in class keeps saying that mom paid you money to pretend to be my dad…”

“That’s why you get into fights all the time?”

John flinched. “H-how do you know…?”

Jack crouched down to be on eyelevel with his son. “I’ve been in a lot of fights too.”

“…I just couldn’t help myself… I punched Curtis and then I didn’t know what to do… so I ran home…”

Jack sighed. “I don’t like that you’re throwing punches.”

“Yelling never gets through to him…”

Jack reached out to the boy’s face to get a better look at the bruises. “You don’t want to get expelled, right?”

“No, but-“

“I know. It’s hard.”

“It okay if they talk shit about me… but not about you.”

“Language.” Jack reminded the boy, then he smiled. “People talk shit about me all the time.”

“But it’s not fair…” The boy protested. “You’re not a bad guy. People just don’t understand because they never ask. That’s really shallow.”

“Have you tried explaining to your classmates?”

John gazed at the carpet then, shook his head. “Betsy said you walk as if someone shoved a broom up your ass…”

The boy stared at his father with wide eyes when he laughed. “That’s the funniest insult I ever heard.”

The boy tilted his head. “…But it’s not funny…”

Jack flashed his son a wide grin. “You know what Betsy doesn’t know?”

“No?”

“That I have the greatest son ever.”

John took a step backwards and blushed in embarrassment. “Dad!”

“What? It’s true.” The man smiled. “Let’s eat… then we talk properly about school, alright?”

“My teacher is going to call…”

“Of course.”

“I’ll get in trouble, right?”

Jack smiled. “Everyone gets in trouble at school. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Okay.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s okay to fight classmates, got that?”

John nodded. “Sometimes I just get so angry that I just can’t help myself. I just _want_ to punch them… does this ever happen to you?”

The older man sighed deeply, not quite sure what to say. “I guess that happens to everyone.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...been writing so many oneshots lately, I'm losing track of them. haha.  
>  Hope you like them anyway.

Jack went outside to water the flowers, something Rose was happier about than she should be. He did it because he wanted to. Things were calm for a moment, then he heard children yell. The thought that they were playing never crossed his mind. Maybe it was an advantage from his own childhood. He could tell when kids where playing and when they were serious. And the boy that was threatening to murder someone sounded dead serious about it. Maybe he wouldn’t actually do it, but Jack feared that he would seriously hurt someone.

He sat down the watering can and followed the yelling. It sounded like these kids were having a brawl. It wasn’t far away from the house either and soon he found school papers and folders, a pencil case, broken pens and an upside down backpack half buried in the bushes that acted as a fence around their house.

Soon enough Jack could see five boys surrounding someone who was most likely already on the floor. The view made him shiver and he had to shake his head to get rid of the images that threatened to invade his mind.

“Hey!” he yelled to get their attention, to break them up. The kids immediately stopped kicking and yelling and turned to face him.

“Run!” a dark haired boy yelled. Was grabbed by the arm of someone else. He and the others made a run for it. Jack grabbed the collar of the last of the boys. He knew that face. And while the boy flailed and tried to get away, Jack turned to look at the boy they had beaten so badly he wasn’t even yelling anymore, there were only tears as the boy shielded his head.

Jack recognized the blond hair immediately and soon enough he stopped caring about the boy he had wanted to keep for an explanation. He lot go, the boy ran away. Jack didn’t bother to look after him as he crouched down, carefully reached out to the boy on the ground, heard him hold his breath when his hand made contact with the shoulder of the nine year old.

“John-“

The boy sat up, looked at his father with his bloodied and bruised face. Tears mixed with the blood, ran down his cheeks in pale streaks. He didn’t say anything when he lunged at his father, wrapped his arms around the man and sobbed silently.

By the shaking of the boy Jack could tell that he had been scared. He was quite riled up himself now. Anger at the kids for what they had done, confusion as to why John had gotten in a fight this violent.

Carefully he picked the boy up and headed inside the house, sat him on the counter in the kitchen to get a better look at the injuries. On first glance they didn’t look too bad, Jack knew better than to pass it off as harmless though.

The whole time the boy kept sniffling away tears, didn’t dare to look his father in the eye. Jack brought the first aid kit, turned the lights on in the kitchen and pulled a chair closer. He carefully cleaned the boy’s face with a wet washcloth, all while carefully noting when the boy winced.

“It’s okay.” Jack muttered after a while to calm the still crying boy.

John froze. “Y-you’re not mad…?” his voice was almost a whisper.

The cyborg placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “When a comrade is injured, you help them the moment you get a chance. Even if they were stupid enough to blow themselves up.”

“Comrade?”

Jack flinched. “…Metaphor.”

The boy tilted his head, then laughed slightly through his tears. “I’m okay, dad…”

“You sure?”

The boy nodded, turned his gaze away again. “…I was just scared…”

“If you start feeling bad, you tell me immediately, alright?”

John nodded, hugged his father tightly. “Thank you for scaring them away…”

Jack was about to pass off the compliment, but instead just didn’t say anything. John was grateful, he didn’t want to ruin that.

“…I think… it just hurt more because… T-Tyler actually-“ John bit his lips to hide the sob, failed miserably at it.

“I knew that face was familiar…”

The boy nodded. “He said he never liked me and just came to play because of the games I have…” The boy looked up at his father, “He used me, dad!”

“And that’s how the fight started?”

“Yeah… we argued all the way home, and then Tyler’s big brother punched me… and then the others showed up…”

“I never knew he had a bigger brother.”

“He lives somewhere else… Tyler said he couldn’t stay with them at home for some reason.”

“I see.” Jack muttered, gave his son a tight hug and helped him off the counter.

“…I didn’t start the fight this time. I promise.”

“I believe you.” Jack answered, followed his son into the hallway and nodded to the staircase. “You should get changed.”

The boy nodded, grimaced at his filthy clothes as he headed upstairs to his room.

Jack turned to the telephone to give Tyler’s mother a call. The woman was quick to pick up. “Rosemary?”

“Husband.” He answered.

“Oh!... I knew one of you was going to call. Tyler just told me what happened. I’m sorry-“

“Apologies won’t change what happened.” He hissed, anger clear in his voice.

“Of course not. I’m sorry my sons got John into trouble. You see, Brandon doesn’t live with us- Long story. What I want to tell you is… that he has certain issues.” She sounded nervous. “He came visiting us for a week. I am deeply sorry that he already fell back into how he used to be, and he was doing so well-“

Jack stared blankly at the wall in front of him. He felt no sympathy. “I’d like for your son to stay away from John.”

“O-of course. I’m really sorry.”

“Apologies won’t change it.” Jack repeated and ended the call. He was now more angry than before, clenched his fists, took a deep breath but he couldn’t quite calm down. What was that woman thinking? That it was okay to hit people just because one had issues?

He only realized he had punched the wall when he felt stares of two people on him. Rose with the groceries in the door, John at the upper end of the stair case.

“Dad?”

“Jack?”

The cyborg sighed, took his hand back out of the wall, made wallpaper and dust rain to the ground. He eyes the hole for a moment then grimaced.

“I’ll fix it.”

“You better.” Rose replied when she headed to the kitchen. “Why are you so upset?”

Thankfully John replied for him. “Tyler and his big brother and I and a few other kids got into a fight…”

Rose seemed surprised when she turned to her son. “Looks like it was violent…”

“…I don’t want to go to school tomorrow…” John whispered.

“You have to.” Rose replied as she unpacked the paper bags.

“But… Tyler is there…”

“Running from a problem will not solve it.” She told the boy, with a glare in Jack’s direction who only gestured wildly to make her look away.

John hung his shoulders, but didn’t beg for it. Instead he went outside and picked up his bag and the things that had fallen out of it.

“You talked to Tyler’s parents?” Rose wanted to know as she turned to her husband.

“…His mother tried to feed me some sob-story about how her other son just can’t act any differently.”

Rose sighed. “I’ll talk to her later. Now you calm down and fix the wall, I’ll prepare lunch.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, lets try this again.
> 
> I felt embarrassed about it, so i deleted it... but tbh, now that I read it again, i don't even know why I felt so awkward about it.
> 
> This is sort of AU-ish, as it assumes that Rose's parents are both alive and well. (who knows if they are. there's no info about them anywhere anyway.)

With slight anticipation Rose opened the E-Mail of her mother. They hadn’t talked to each other in a week, mainly because she was too busy to actually reply. Her mother sending another mail could only mean that she was getting impatient. The mail itself was quite short but had a file attached.

‘Good Morning, sweetheart’ her mother greeted her. Rose caught herself glancing at the clock. It was already past noon. She smiled at it and continued to read.

‘Someone sent this to me, I am not sure what it is but the instructions said ‘send this to your youngest daughter’. It is a video, the content is a very disturbing documentary. Do you think it is a prank? Are **these** people still around?’

Rose frowned. Did she mean the patriots? The woman wondered if her mother would have even figured that out. Then again, she was quite smart, she would have figured something out and connected dots sooner or later.

Rose put headphones in and clicked on the file to open it. The title simply read ‘Test Subject 57-86’. The whole thing started with an opening scene of various scientists, their faces hidden from view and voices distorted. The camera movement was shaky and amateurish. What she could make out was that the building looked like a lab, various people shuffling about. The narrator sounded old, like the ones in school documentaries. She figured it couldn’t be as harmless as that though. Her mother had warned her about the content after all.

The camera soon cut to people fussing around other people, the narrator talking about creating the ultimate weapon. She saw a tiny Logo on the side of the video. ‘AT-Security’. That made her raise her brows. No doubt the patriots had their hands in this now. But what was it about?

Another cut of the camera, this time to a single person. Disturbing sounds of heavy machinery could be heard. The people fussing around that one person where clad in white, looked somewhat alien with their protective clothing and transparent visors on their faces.

Rose watched in bemusement, something about it disturbing her even before the screams had started. The person they were fussing over was male, judging by the panicked voice. Rose couldn’t see completely what they were doing, but when a removed arm was placed aside, her stomach turned. To her untrained eye the arm looked very intact, and the fact that the person they had done that to was fully conscious was very disturbing.

She was frozen in place, could only watch the terrible scene playing in the video. A second arm followed. By that time she didn’t even listen to the narrator anymore, all her ears picked up where the heartbreaking screams.

When the camera panned to the face of the person, Rose slammed her hands onto the spacebar to pause the video. Then she sat completely still and stared at the face of a very familiar person. The screams should have given it away, the voice was so familiar.  Her lips had become a very thin line as her eyes filled with tears. Her hands were shaking and she felt sick to the bone.

Minutes passed without her being able to move. The tears collected on the table to create a small puddle but she barely took note of that. All she could look at was the grainy picture of the man, screaming his lungs out and begging these people to stop. He feared for his life, it didn’t take a genius to tell that.

When the front door opened Rose closed the video and the mail, and shut the laptop. Then she just kept staring. Jack soon peeked into the living room, was about to say something when he noticed his wife crying.

“What’s wrong?” he asked gently, closed the distance between them.

Rose only shook her head, stiffly got up from the chair and wrapped her arms around him.

“Did something happen?” he sounded concerned. To Rose that felt sort of eerie. Even when he had no idea what she had just watched, she found it strange that he could be like this after what she had just seen. It was easily the cruelest thing she had ever come across.

 “Just watched sad videos.” She tried to lie, had no energy left to make something up.

“They usually don’t make you cry…” he trailed off as he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly.

“This was different.” She whispered, caught herself thinking that she needed to do everything to make this man happy, wanted to wipe tears away that had long since dried away, wanted to reassure where no reassurance was needed anymore. Had he forgotten about the ordeal? Suppressed the memories? He had once told her that he remembered some of it. She almost wished that his mind had locked away these memories, maybe even erased them.

“…My mother sent me a video she got from someone.” She eventually said, not sure if she would tell him or not. She didn’t want to, yet she felt like she needed to tell him what she had just seen. It didn’t feel fair to keep it to herself.

“This fake heartbreaking shit they spread around on facebook?” Jack asked with a scoff. Rose knew he didn’t think highly of social media.

“No… e-mail. I…” she took a deep breath, tried to collect her thoughts. “It’s… something… most likely recorded by the patriots-“

“What?” he almost yelled then, immediately tense and on edge.

“Calm down… it wasn’t a new video.”

“Still.” He insisted.

He reached for the laptop, but Rose snatched it away, hugged it to her chest and backed into the wall. She knew it was childish, but she was too out of it to think about more complex strategies.

“Rose…” Jack sighed. “Sunny can find out who sent it to your mother.”

“I don’t her want to find out. I don’t want her to see this. Nobody… should ever see this.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What is it about?”

Rose hung her shoulders. “A documentary…”

“About?” he almost looked cute, confused as he was. Rose didn’t want to tell him, but she knew he wouldn’t let go of the question until he had an answer. Sometimes it amazed her that the guy who dodged questions like nobody else, was insisting to get all answers he wanted.

“…They were taking people apart-“ she whispered, stared at him. She watched him go pale and take a few steps backwards. Seconds later he licked his lips, ran a hand through his hair and paced around the room for a moment. Next to the window he stared at her again.

“S-so…” he muttered, voice raspy and trembling. “You saw what they did to people…”

Rose could only nod, unable to get even a sound out.

He laughed humorlessly. “Disturbing shit, isn’t it?”

“Jack…”

“…most of them died.” He whispered, eyes somewhere between wall and carpet.

 

  


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dumb little oneshot. Hope you enjoy~

This week started with rain, just like the previous day and the whole last week. John however, couldn’t have been happier. He didn’t care about the weather at all. After all, he had the whole week off school and his father would arrive any minute now.

“He’ll be here before you’re ready.” Rose joked when she shut the fridge.

John was struggling with the rain boots, hastily put on his rain coat and ripped the front door open. “Won’t! Can’t see his car yet!”

“Be careful.” His mother smiled when John stepped outside and shut the front door. The boy didn’t remembered when he started to do this, but every time his father was coming home and he had enough time, he would run into the direction the car would come from.  Like today.

John could barely keep his excitement to himself when he dashed down the road, skipped over puddles or jumped into them. Just a few more minutes.

A car drove down the road and for a moment John hoped it was his father, then he hung his shoulders in slight disappointment. But that didn’t stop him from running further. One time he had made it to the big intersection that would eventually lead to the highway. And he had waited there for almost an hour until his father picked him up.

John hoped this time there wouldn’t be a traffic jam. The rain really made the weather feel colder than it was.

He passed a set of traffic lights that thankfully had just changed to green so he didn’t have to stop running.

Not much later he saw a black car stopped by a police car. John could see two of them talking to someone who suspiciously looked like his father. The boy frowned and grimaced. The rain was already running down his collar and into his shirt. He slowed down his steps, was walking slowly and hesitantly towards the cars. He couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but he assumed that it was something bad. Did his father drive too fast? There was no other car, so it couldn’t have been an accident.

John walked through the gap between the cars, flinched at the annoyed look of the policemen. Both of them seemed very angry. And drenched by the rain.

“Go back home boy, there’s nothing for you to see here.” One of the two told him.

“But-“ John tried to argue when the other came closer.  John was then grabbed by the arm and pulled backwards. Then his father blocked the way. “Leave my son out of this.”

The hand let go of his arm but John grabbed it quickly and hugged the arm of his father. He had waited so long to hug him again, he wouldn’t let the police stop him from doing that.

“Your son?” one of the two men asked in disbelief.

John winced. He was just as tired of this question as his  father was. Maybe even more. He had to explain it to teachers, other parents, his friends. The reactions were very mixed and often negative.

John took off the hood of his raincoat. Surely they would see the resemblance of their faces. They had to. Most people stopped questioning it once they saw both of them next to each other. But these policemen didn’t seem interested in this at all.

“I’m sorry I didn’t-“ Jack tried to explain but was cut off.

“We don’t care, Mister. As of last month all cyborgs need to register all their vehicles at the Enhanced department, to keep better track of them. And this one is registered to a human.”

“It’s registered to my wife.” Jack said, pointed to the papers the other man was holding.

“Then you shouldn’t be driving it.”

John chewed on his lip, not quite understanding what was going on, but having a good idea on that these men wouldn’t let his father off the hook that easily.

“I am allowed to drive it. It’s stated here.” The cyborg pointed to another place on the papers. John couldn’t see what it was, but it looked pretty colorful.

“They are outdated.”

“They’re still valid.” Jack argued. “Until December next year.”

“The new law-“

“Does not state that I am not allowed to drive my wife’s car.”

John toned the conversation out. He was getting cold and all his excitement was now washed over by annoyance and anger towards the policemen. He had waited three months for his father to come back home and they ruined the day because of some crap like that.

Angrily he ripped the car door open and climbed into the car. It wasn’t much warmer inside, but at least it didn’t rain there. Shivering he grabbed the blanket from the trunk and took his raincoat off before he wrapped it around himself. Then he looked through the window, could barely see anything through all the raindrops.

A few minutes later he heard the police car drive away and his father opened the driver’s door. “Assholes.” The man cursed and shut the door with way more force than needed.

John slipped off the backseat and leaned forward. “They’re not taking the car away?”

Jack shook his head. “It belongs to your mother, so they can’t take it.” The man reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair. “Sorry about that. How’re you doing? Missed me?”

John smiled bashfully and hugged his father. “Mom’s baking cake.”

“Oh god…”

The boy giggled into his father’s drenched shirt. “She’s using a recipe… shouldn’t turn out too bad. I looked up a simple one.”

“I take your word for it.”

John grinned, then sat down on the backseat again. “How long are you staying this time?”

The man sighed and started the engine. “At least two weeks.”

“Really?!” John squealed in excitement. “We can do so many things then!”

“You’re on spring break, aren’t you?”

“Yup!”

“How about we go to an amusement park?”

The boy froze in surprise. “…You would do that? But the tickets are expens-“

“I saved up a bit so we could go.”

John jumped, hit his head and crumpled back down to the seat, while he grabbed his head “Owowowowow.”

Jack bit back a laugh. “You okay?” He still sounded amused.

“Y-yeah… ow.”

“Put your seatbelt on.” The man chuckled.

“Stop laughing!” John complained as he pulled the seatbelt. “Your fault for surprising me like that!”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> probably OOC.... didn't care much when i wrote it.

When John returned from school, Jack immediately knew something was up. The way the boy fired his shoes into the corner and how he stormed upstairs before even saying anything made that very clear. He didn’t bother to go after him, didn’t want to make the boy angrier than he was. He would calm down sooner or later. It wasn’t the first time after all.

Ten minutes later the boy entered the kitchen and got himself something to drink, but he didn’t bother to talk to his father at all.

“Did something happen in school?” the man then asked silently, carefully. He didn’t want John to think that he was prying, but he was curious nonetheless.

The boy pretended not to have heard him and headed out of the kitchen.

“John, talk to me.”

John turned around, glared at his father. “You signed that paper for the school trip.”

Jack frowned. “Yeah I did.”

“Now I can’t go.” The boy’s glare got even more intense than it had been before.

“Why? I signed-

“Because you’re a cyborg. Your signature doesn’t count!” the boy yelled. “Betsy said she’s not my friend anymore when I can’t go. And that’s all your fault!”

Jack put the towel he was holding aside and gestured sort of helplessly to try to calm the boy. “I can talk to your teacher-“

“If mom had signed it I could go!”

“John, calm down. I’m sure I can talk to them.” Jack tried, slightly surprised at the rage of the boy. He assumed the trip had been important to him and he felt sort of guilty. He hadn’t known that there was a rule like that. No one had told him.

“I hate you.” John hissed. He barely raised his voice, but the words were uttered with such force that they felt like knives. “It’s all because you’re a cyborg!”

Jack held his breath, tried to stay calm. John was upset, he wasn’t thinking about his words. But that didn’t change the fact that they hurt. “John-“

“You don’t know what that’s like! You went on tons of school trips and you never even thought about it!” the boy now shouted. “Nobody hated you because your dad wasn’t a cyborg!”

“John!” Jack hissed. “I will talk to your teacher-“ he repeated but was cut off again when John continued to yell.

“And you always had enough money for cool things! And you had tons of friends! And you were cool and nobody dared to pick a fight with you! I don’t want you to be my dad anymore! I want to be adopted!”

“You take that back this instant!” Jack now shouted. He had made a step forward, towered over his son, rage clear on his face. “You have absolutely no idea what my childhood was like! I never even knew my parents. At your age I killed people in a warzone. I didn’t even go to school! My trips were days without food or water, through deserts with soldiers constantly chasing us, my friend. Now get the fuck to your room before I snap completely!”

The cyborg froze at his own words, his mind still displaying the fearful gaze of his son even after John had already run to his room. Shit, what had he done? How could he have said any of this to his son? The things he had sworn to never tell him, just sputtered out like that. And the way he had said it… not calm, the way he had imagined he would tell him if it ever came to that. The boy had ticked him off so badly with what he said.

“That’s no excuse…” Jack hissed to himself, leaned against the doorframe and kept staring at the tiles in the hallway. There were clear drops on the tiles. Had John cried? He hadn’t even noticed. All he had thought about was his rage, the anger at the words.

He wasn’t sure how he was going to fix this, was almost certain he had infinitely ruined the relationship to his son. He had never wanted to use his past as an excuse again, but the boy had just triggered it.

And the hours passed, John didn’t return to the lower level until his mother was home and dinner was ready. At the dining table John avoided looking at his father and didn’t react to anything the man was saying. The boy finished eating in record time and quickly excused himself from the table to do his homework. Rose let him, not knowing the full extent of the argument yet.

“So.” She eventually said to her husband. “What happened?”

Jack glared at the plate in front of him. He hadn’t touched the food, didn’t feel like he deserved it. Not that he needed it anyway. It was just the family experience that made it worth to endure Rose’s awful cooking.

“I snapped at him.” He eventually muttered.

Rose frowned. “You snapped at him before.”

“Not like that…”

The woman sighed. “I called the teacher, by the way. It was a misunderstanding apparently. John’s still allowed to go to the trip.”

“So the entire argument was pointless…”

Rose shrugged. “It isn’t always fun and games, you know that.”

He hung his shoulders. “…How am I going to make up for what I said to him? He said he wanted to be adopted…”

She smiled gently. “I’ll talk to him about it. He’ll calm down eventually, don’t let it get to you.”

“…I know what it’s like to be shuffled around like dirty rags from family to family…”

She put a hand on his shoulder, kissed his cheek. “Both of you were mad. You two should talk about it tomorrow, then things are calmer.”

He only nodded, but couldn’t get the argument out of his head. The whole night he kept replaying it in his mind and didn’t get any sleep at all. In the morning John still didn’t talk to him. Not when he ate breakfast, not when his father made vain attempts at talking to him and not when the boy left for school. Rose sighed at it, hadn’t thought that the boy would take it that far. She would talk to him again once she was back from work and hoped that her son and her husband wouldn’t get into another argument later on.

When John came back home in the afternoon, Jack had been dozing off on the couch, hugging Rose’s pillow to his chest and dwelling on how to apologize to his son. He barely noticed that the boy had entered the living room and only opened his eyes when John carefully poked his shoulder. He was still wearing his jacket and backpack, only had taken off his shoes. He had a drawn picture in his hand and nervously chewed on his lip ad he held it out to his father.

Jack carefully took the picture, straightened the crumpled edges, and smiled at the drawing of two people that were obviously him and John. John had written ‘I’m Sorry’ above it.

The boy turned away when his father put the picture aside and hugged him. “I’m sorry too.” He whispered. “I shouldn’t have said what I did…”

John nodded slightly, fighting tears. “…Y-you were really scary…” the boy admitted.

“I know… ” Jack muttered, slightly surprised when John crawled into his lap and hugged him tightly.

“Don’t do that again… okay?” John whispered. “I never say I wanted to be adopted again…. I don’t hate you dad, you’re the best dad ever…”

“Thank you.” Jack replied silently. “I won’t do it again, I promise.” He told the boy then.

“Is it true…?” John eventually asked then.

“Is what true?”

“That you killed people when you were my age?”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> post mgs4

There were a lot of times when she felt alienated by manmade things. That one time her mother bought a toy that moved on its own, or when her father showed her a machine they were testing to make work easier. She was never sure if she liked these heavy, almost self-aware machines or not, usually went about her daily life without dwelling too much on them. There had never been a reason to.

Until she had been reunited with her husband.

But even then it was easy to forget. The artificial skin made it easy to forget, despite the unnatural look. And yet, when she was reminded of what he was now, it was always like a punch to the face. Once, a few days after they went back home together, she learned that he was missing several things normal humans depended on. She still tried to understand; wrap her mind around it. Deep inside she knew she would never be able to fully understand it, but that didn’t keep her from trying.

John loved his father as much as a child could. There had never been doubt. Not when Jack had accidentally snapped the boy’s crayons, not when he stepped on Lego and broke tiny parts and later on cursed when he tried to glue them back together- John even laughed at that. The boy seemed a lot livelier now, even.

But all of it had downsides. She tried not to see them as such, but when Jack spaced out and she couldn’t snap him out of it, she felt helpless. There was so much he hadn’t told her and probably never would, yet she saw in his eyes that he had been through a hell that easily overshadowed what he went through as a child.

Often, in the middle of a conversation she mentioned something that made him freeze, sometimes he forgot what he wanted to say; at times he even forgot the whole conversation. When it got really bad he was just standing or sitting there, confused to no end as to how he had gotten there. There was a lot she still needed to figure out. This man she had known once seemed like a completely different person at times.  

And they fought a lot too. About trivial things. Who did the dishes, who took the trash out, who would read bedtime stories for John? When she thought about it she found it ridiculous that they fought at all about these things. And now with Christmas rolling around Rose had hoped things would calm down a little, but it only got worse.

He was standing there now, in the kitchen in the middle of broken plates, like a scolded puppy as she kept yelling at him. Those were the good plates. The ones she had spent a fortune on. Broken. On the floor and beyond saving. She had planned the dinner to be calm and peaceful. And now that was ruined.

When she opened her mouth again he held up his hands in defense. “I-I’m sorry-“

“That won’t make them whole again!” she yelled back. She couldn’t tell why she was so unreasonably upset. Everything around them seemed so unreasonable lately.

“I only wanted-“

“Wanted to ruin the evening? Good job, Jack. You passed.” She hissed back at him.

“Rose...!” he hesitated to raise his voice, hadn’t done it once in the past few months. Rose even thought he was unable to. Now she was proven wrong. He could actually yell.

“What?” she scoffed. “Clean up the fucking mess, it’s not going to take care of itself!”

She resisted the urge to flinch when his confused expression changed to a glare so intense it sent shivers down her spine. She wasn’t sure anymore if she wasn’t afraid, didn’t know what he would do if she took this even further. Would he snap for real? Not just back down like all the other times they fought?

When he hung his shoulders and got the broom, Rose thought that she had won that argument. She wasn’t even certain why she was arguing about this at all.

The shards clinked on the ground as he gathered them with the broom. Rose thought he would snap that thing in half with his glare when she turned back to the pots and stirred the food. The tension in the air was almost visible. He was trying his best to pretend to be normal and failed at even the simplest of things. Maybe that was the real reason why she was angry. It wasn’t even directed at him, but at the people who had done this to him.

“Jack…” She said silently when he threw the shards away. He froze at her voice, looked at her as if waiting for her to lash out again.

“Maybe…. It wasn’t such a good idea to live together again.”  She was surprised at her own words, hadn’t wanted to make it sound like that.

His hurt glance was something she would never forget. The way his face got even paler than it had been before, how his eyes widened in realization of her words and how his expression changed from hurt to nothing. It was completely blank as if someone had pulled a plug.

“…Can’t stand it, huh?” he growled, his words like poison. “At least you finally said it.” He put the broom back to its place and stomped out of the kitchen.

Moments later he has in the hall, had a bag with him and a boy clinging to his shirt with tears in his eyes and screams on his lips. Rose felt numb when she saw it. Jack was going to leave. Again. And once again it had been her words that drove him away. She had training, she knew she shouldn’t act like that, but that didn’t help her now.

John screamed, tried to stop his father from walking up to the front door by holding on to the door frame with one hand and his father’s shirt with the other. Rose was impressed by the strength of the boy.

The boy’s words were drowned in tears and sobs, Rose couldn’t understand a thing. She didn’t have to, knew what the boy was begging so desperately. It almost surprised her that he knew what was going on. But he wasn’t stupid. He had ears and he definitely was smarter than most kids his age.

“Mommy didn’t mean it!”

Rose flinched. How low had she sunken that her son needed to make excuses for her behavior? She stood in the door way, unable to move as she watched Jack drop the bag and turned around to the boy. John looked up at him, shaking and crying and Rose felt incredibly guilty. If only she had shut up, this would have never happened. She would have snapped some other way though, and that could have been worse. Maybe it was good that this had finally happened.

Jack picked the boy up like the most delicate thing in the world and held him as he cried into the dark shirt of his father. He leaned against the wall in the hallway, gently rubbed the back of the boy.

Rose retreated when she remembered she had food on the stove, but quickly realized it was now burned. She didn’t bother to get upset at that, just turned off the stove and sat down on a chair. Minutes later Jack walked back in, still carrying John. The boy had calmed down by then, still clung to his father for dear life.

What had she been thinking to even make him consider leaving? She knew she could give him hell for trying to break his promise not to run anymore, but he was still there. And she had pushed him. The blamed herself now. Not him.

The right moment to apologize seemed to have long been gone, Rose almost didn’t want to. She had to in order to at least convince John that everything was okay.

“I,” she whispered, stumbled over her words. “I’m  sorry. What I said… came out wrong.”

Silently she begged her husband to just accept it, for the sake of getting John to bed without a fuss tonight.

“I’m sorry too.” He replied, but Rose clearly heard that he didn’t mean any of it. His glare didn’t help to keep the illusion.

He didn’t unpack the bag, but he didn’t leave either. Rose thought that it was a solution somewhere in the middle.

He chose to sleep on the couch, however.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post MGS4   
> Some things i really wanted to explore.  
> Hope you enjoy it :D

Four days didn’t seem much, but for Rose those four days felt like eternity. Not the good kind. The past few days were a constant mess of her overstepping boundaries she didn’t know where there, of questions she shouldn’t have asks, mindless stares she should have avoided and worst of all, she was so on edge that she blew up at the smallest thing.

Right now it was one of these moments that had caused her husband to slam the bedroom door shut with a force that made her wonder how the door was still intact. She was almost glad that John was in preschool right now. Didn’t want him to witness yet another fight like this. Jack didn’t run away, he kept that promise, but he still avoided the conflict. Rose wished he would snap back at her for once, but he only communicated his anger by slamming doors or glaring at her.

She wasn’t even sure what had caused this reaction this time. She barely remembered what she had said. Maybe it was just the way she had said it. Jack seemed a lot more sensitive to changes in her voice now.

With a deep sigh Rose leaned against the wall in the corridor and stared at the door that had been slammed shut just seconds ago. The apartment was completely still. She didn’t know what he did on the other side of that door, if he just stood there or did anything else.

She scolded herself, had hoped she would finally stop snapping so much, as she wasn’t even sure what caused it all. Jack hadn’t deserved this anger, he tried everything he could, but maybe it was that what made Rose angry in the first place. He kept pretending that everything was fine. A very old habit that seemed hard to break. But it had to be broken, she knew that.

Softly she knocked at the door, opened it when she received no reply. Jack was standing with his back towards her, almost looked frozen to the spot. He didn’t move when she stepped into the room, and when she rested a hand on his shoulder, she just felt him tense up. It still amazed her that a machine was so responsive to his emotions. She mentally slapped herself. This was what she wasn’t supposed to think. And still, all the subtle movements he made caught her attentions like they had never done before.

Every time he shoved the hair out of his face, or when he made the bed, when he cleaned the kitchen like he used to do or picked up after her. Sometimes it felt like nothing had changed between them, but the moments never lasted. He would drop something sooner or later, snap things in half on accident, stumble into door frames. And it had only been four days. Rose was exhausted emotionally. She had so many questions and couldn’t ask them, afraid of him shutting her out again.

“I… can’t stand it…” He whispered eventually.

His hands were clenched into fists and he didn’t move at all.

“Can’t stand what?” she asked carefully, silently. When she tried to look at his face he turned his head away from her gaze.

She stopped, took a step backwards, her hand still resting on his shoulder. He didn’t reply right away, she assumed he was thinking about what to say.

“…I… you…” he fumbled for words, seemed nervous now. She gently ran her hand over his back, tried to take the tension away.

“…You… stare… like all the other people.” he eventually told her. His voice barely above a whisper. She stopped her thought of being amazed at that and almost laughed. That was his problem? It seemed funny. She had been sure there had been something a lot more difficult going on. Most likely it wasn’t the full truth. He had a habit of telling half truths.

“I know.” She answered silently. “And I know it bugs you.” She had noticed that he turned away whenever she looked at him with the eyes of a curious stranger and not a lover. “I can’t stop this right away.” She told him, wrapped her arms around his arm and rested her head against his shoulder. “I’m still grasping the concept… it’s hard to understand.” She was walking on thin ice. He could pull away and snap any second, but he stayed calm.

“It is…” He whispered.

Rose stepped forward, let go of him in the process and reached out to his face. Before her hands made contact she stopped, waited for his reaction. He almost seemed afraid of what she was about to do. Touching him seemed so normal. Hands, shoulders. They hugged. But now Rose realized she had barely touched his face. Had she even kissed him?

“May I?” she wasn’t sure why she asked. His face seemed so precious now, so delicate and important. Something she had taken for granted all these years.

He nodded once, subtle and slowly. She almost missed it.

Carefully and slow her fingers made contact with the warm skin of his face, the very face she had touched a thousand times before. And still it was different now. It didn’t look much different, he just looked tired and very pale, but that had other reasons.

She rested her palms on his cheeks, her fingers buried in his hair and for a long moment she could only stare at his eyes. They seemed a lot more pale than they used to be, maybe even glassed over. Like marbles. Unnatural. She assumed it was because of how pale his face looked. But her gaze didn’t rest on them for long. Her eyes wandered. His eyebrows. They looked like they had always looked. It felt strange to be familiar with that, that something so normal now made her feel nostalgic.

She looked back at his eyes. His eyelashes seemed longer. She felt her heart skip a beat. How she still loved him, the years apart hadn’t changed it. If anything the feeling was now stronger than it had been before. She wanted to kiss him, hold him like she used to. Yet something still held her back.

She blinked against her tears, ran her thumbs over his cheeks. His skin was soft, smooth. And his hair… she remembered how she had taken handfuls of it during much more intimate moments, and yet right now seemed so intimate it almost overwhelmed her. For years she had waited to touch him again, patiently and silently. Endured her pain without ever saying a word to anyone. Much less him.

She blinked in surprise when his hands found their way to her waist and how gently he wrapped his arms around her, all without ever breaking eye contact.

“It’s still the same face.” He breathed, her eyes focused on his lips. Half of it was still the same. “Mostly.” He finished.

She let one hand cross the line to where the machine was attached. It did feel like a physical border to her at the moment. The artificial skin felt different, it was too smooth, never changed colors. Uncanny even.

Her thumb ghosted over his lower lip, was almost disappointed when it barely moved at the touch. In a sudden flash of overwhelming confidence she pulled him close and kissed his lips, caused him to grumble into the kiss. He sounded surprised maybe even upset. The kiss barely lasted a second, and she felt some sort of disappointment afterwards. He had barely tried to return it.  When she pulled away a bit more he let his hands drop from her waist. Eyes sad he tried to turn his head away, but she wouldn’t let him.

“It’s… not the same anymore.” He muttered as he tried hard not to meet her eyes.

“We just have to find new ways then.” Rose whispered, brushed his hair out of his face and kissed his cheek.

“Both of us changed. We just have to get to know each other again.” She tried.

“…You think that’s possible?”

She smiled, nodded quickly. “This time might even be more fun.”

He lifted an eyebrow and a strange smile ghosted over his lips. The first smile she had seen on him in those four days.

“How about we show John Central Park later?” she suggested.

His smile instantly fell, but before he could say anything she continued, “Jack, whatever happens, I love you. That isn’t going to change.” She felt that she had to assure him of that.

 


	18. Chapter 18

Touch. Something so usual, so normal. No one ever thought about it. Touch, sensation, reactions. It happened to naturally. It was nothing special, nothing unusual or exciting.

Until one was deprived of that sensation. Until that sensation was taken away and only a dull numbness remained.

Jack looked at the clock on the small counter next to tons of little gadgets and machines that he once would have frowned upon. Sometimes it occurred to him that he was able to name them all and explain their purpose- eerie in a way.

Doktor was writing down on a pad, walked around the room to look at a screen, then turned around and settled back on the chair he had occupied for the past two or three hours- Jack couldn’t remember how long it really was.

He was excited to say the least. A new system, a prototype. Something that no other cyborg had built in. He was the first to try and even though he usually passed up on opportunities like that, this time he was very eager to do so.

It had taken a while to install the system, Doktor had assured him that no new sensory input had to be built, the hardware was there already. It was the software that wasn’t strong enough. But that was supposed to change now. Somehow.

Jack begun to have doubts now, as he always did when he tested out some prototypes. He was certainly not the first to raise his hand when asked for an upgrade. Too many people had done too many wrongs to him.

“So…” Doktor muttered mostly to himself. He dragged the sound on for a moment, as if thinking as he did so. Jack thought it was something germans just did. A habit.

“Should we take a break?”

Jack was surprised to be spoken to, Doktor had spoken to himself more than to him all this time. “Why?” A short hiss, that came out harsher than intended.

Doktor shook his head as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. “You have been sitting here for so long, are you not bored yet?”

Jack almost laughed. Bored? “Not really.” He replied, this time mindful to keep his voice controlled.

“Shall we continue then?” Doktor pulled the chair closer, one hand holding the writing pad, the other a cable. It bounced slightly at the movement.

“Unless _you_ want to take a break.” Jack muttered, had almost forgotten that Doktor had been working on this for way longer then these few hours.

“After this.” The older man smiled and handed him the cord.

Jack grasped it instantly, a habit. He was surprised at how much he trusted this man. How quick he was to give control over his system to him. No one else was allowed to get this far into his systems. Sometimes Jack could forget what had been done to him so many years before he had gotten to know the technician. It was so easy to trust and to let go of all the fears.

Carefully he took the cable and inserted it into a port at his neck. That was also something Jack barely ever thought about anymore. It was too normal now.

“The system is functional.” Doktor informed him with the tell tale scientist grin. “If you are ready I will activate it.”

Jack held up a hand to stop him from doing so right away. “Just so we’re clear on this,” He said silently, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Doktor sighed in a quite comically exaggerated way and shook his head once more. “Raiden…”His voice held this tone as if he was scolding a child.

“I’m serious.” Jack replied. He wasn’t on edge, knew Doktor would not willingly do anything to harm him, and still.

“The absolute worst that could happen would be a system overload.” Doktor explained.

Jack sighed in annoyance. He was not looking forward to passing out and waking up with a massive headache and nausea, but that would pass. And who said that it was going to happen at all.  “Fine. Switch it on.”

“Of course.” Doktor hesitated for a moment before he flicked a switch.

At first nothing changed, Jack wasn’t even sure if anything had happened. He was about to ask about it, when suddenly the chair he was sitting on felt a lot more uncomfortable than before. A frown made its way to his face. The shoes he was wearing were tied too tightly, he had never even realized. Hair tickled the back of his neck, a sensation he had forgotten about.

He held his breath for a moment. His pants were stiff, uncomfortable.

Slowly he moved to grasp the sweatshirt he had been wearing before he came in here. His movements were slow and calculated, almost as if he was afraid to shut off the new system.

When his hands finally made contact with the soft fabric he froze. He had forgotten how dull things felt. The information had been erased from his minds long ago. Things just felt dull. He had gotten used to it. But now he could pick up the tiny threads in the fabric, the soft material the small uneven bumps. The fraying threat that was sticking out of the sleeve. It tickled.

“I assume it is working.” Doktor grinned at him.

Jack needed a moment before he was able to reply. “…It is.”

 


End file.
